fireproof

I think I was born with a fuse, not a heart, like something designed just to fall apart. A quiet little hiss lived under my skin, like time had a countdown buried within. And fireworks, people love that show, the way they climb where the stars won't go. All colour and confidence, loud and bright, turning a dark sky into borrowed light. They scream "look at me" without making a sound, then bloom into galaxies hanging around. For a moment they own every eye in the place, for a moment they wear forever's face. I think I got jealous. I wanted that too. To be somebody impossible, somebody new. So I learned how to glitter, learned how to glow, learned all the right places to hide what I know. I laughed a little louder, stood a little taller, made every cracked piece of me seem somehow smaller. I lit up whole rooms, I lit up whole skies, put constellations in my mouth, kept stars in my eyes. And everyone loved it. Of course they did. No one looks closely at the magician's trick. Because nobody asks fireworks if burning hurts, they just clap at the colours and praise how it works. Nobody thinks of the price of the flame, of becoming a spectacle, forgetting your name. Because what they don't see when the night settles back, is the smoke in the air or the ash turning black. How pieces of brilliance come drifting back down, still warm from existing, still wearing the crown. And maybe that's grief not screaming or pain, just looking for pieces of yourself in the rain. Just realizing the thing you thought made you shine, was a fire that was slowly consuming your spine.