By Lily Mayo
I’ve been hearing a lot of people talking about how when someone’s born into a burning house, they think that the world is on fire.
I think that’s bullshit.
Because the truth about burning houses is that we still look through their windows. And though the fog might cloud the glass, we can still see a distorted truth.
I can’t survive out there. My lungs are equipped to fill with flame not oxygen. Heat not air. They ache and burn, but that is how I like it, because that is what I know. I don’t know how to live in a house that’s not on fire.
When you’re born into a burning house, you forget what it’s like for somebody to have a match held to their skin for the first time. You forget what it’s like to have a flame kiss you when you have been drowning in its affection for so long.
When I walk out those doors I know I’ve left the flame, but I still feel that heat on my skin and I don’t know how to explain it to you. My bones are stoking the fire, my body is turning on a spit.
Yes it hurts to burn but at least I’m warm. The world could be so cold. I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how you live in a house that’s not on fire. I hate that you can.
And that’s bullshit.