Burn
There are so many ways to pass the time, but my favorite is to just light up and smoke. With a thick fog surrounding me, I watch wax melt and travel south to rest in the glass hold of a bowl. I sink into an ever greater crater, burrowing into a hole of my own creation. Shadows coat the walls there, but I escape the dark because I’m light of heart and burn to live. It’s completely self-destructive, but people still long to be near to me.
The other night I lit up and three young women crowded into a circle around me. They wore ticklish grins and winkish eyes, and I sensed they were up to no good. I cozied up between them, eager to be apart of their company. As the smoke climbed up into their heads they became calmer and sang out poetry and prose. I hummed along to their soothing tones, my face brighter each moment that passed. I rose and fell with their whims.
After a while, I couldn’t see their faces through the mist of the room. I could hear them giggle and felt them rustling around, poking or bumping into each other, but my vision was blurry and I felt light headed. I started to get that feeling of solitude I only find when I sink beyond the walls of wax into someplace undefined. I knew I was burning out, but I couldn’t stop. It was the only way I knew how to live. Each breath I took shook me around until all the gust blew out of me. I felt small and insignificant with the fear of the dark circling and growing around me.
The women vanished into some distant corners of the room. I didn’t know if they were still even there anymore, or if they ever were. They felt like memories, unreliable and fleeting. I had reached the end of my rope and was frantic. I wasn’t ready to go, to stop. I wanted to burn forever, but I became paranoid. I felt one strong breath in my direction would be the end.
One of the young women emerged from the haze of the room like an angel or a demon sent to summon me. She bent over my helpless form, and pierced her lips as though to kiss new life into my quivering soul. I had no choice but to succumb to the calm of her soothing breath, and I sank into the night, released from my torch of light.
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