fire

I have gone nearly a year without an audience. The only one to praise my accomplishments has been me, and I have learned to make that enough. I prefer for that to be enough. Because when I get another person involved, they invariably hurt me with their opinion. It makes me hate who I am. It makes me want to burn down everything and rise anew. I become like a phoenix. But a phoenix that emerges smaller and smaller each time.

Now there's a new woman whose eyes rove my face when we talk. It makes me smile when she does that. I can't help it. It's a smile that wells from within. And that lack of control frightens me. Because I know what it means. I know what's coming next. She's grappling the match from my fingers. She's going to start a fire she will not tend. And soon the theater of my personality will burn down. It will burn down, again.