To the Woman Who Died in the Ponderosa Villas Apartment Complex

We found your blouse–the one with the speckled lilies that are so small they look like dots of un-buttered popcorn. I wonder how the belligerent eyes of the fire, its lashes rising as if in question to the slated silhouette of night, didn’t see this, consume its flimsy blue fabric. What were you cooking at 2 in the morning? Were you like me, binging anime and sad songs, pulling at your drink, while your forgotten Digornio didn’t get off on the right foot and regurgitated flame? What were you sleeping on? Was it the unwilling fight against inevitable eyeshut, dreams of a future far from these weak walls, or the numbing of post-work insomnia finally wearing off? Was it drugs? But believe it or not, I somehow dredge up jealousy from all this. I want to sleep through disaster; I want to be unaware of my surroundings. I want to sleep through all my accidents and mistakes without feeling a thing. My anxiety burns me from inside out, invisible flames forcing me to flail for a temporary extinguishing, a purging of restless blood and nerves stamped with an unease levied by social malcontent. I can even light my voice on fire, but this is a singular plague that the heated wisps of will never spread. Smoldering migraines and the searing smile of cheap pocket knife gathering blood tinder isn’t enough to quell a body waiting to be ash. I’d burn my mouth on your fatally overcooked food so I wouldn’t have to speak another failed ignition at being a realistically compliant member of society. I envy you because I can be dead and feel everything at the same time. Being awake and living are two separate things. Why do you get the easy way out–trapped and escorted to a numbness unrivalled. To you who died just yesterday, my lukewarm jealousy will never reach a boil. To you whose lungs are now tar black, we have your dog, safe, who jumped down three stories to the pleading arms of the firefighters calls. To you who didnt survive after four hours intensive care, I’m sorry we never even passed through each other’s eyesight, a floor apart. I’m the look away. I’m the downcast eyes. I’m the one forgotten. I’m the disappearance from crowds. I’m the solace in solitude. I’m the heavy hands that fumble at belonging. I’m the feet that leave early, I’m the lungs that choke in hyperventilation. I am an unrecognizable plague. I’m a self-employed and reserved arsonist, always and only burning myself. This is my caloric eternity. I bite my nails and lips to fuel the kindling of nervousness. I want to burn without feeling the sting of shaky blood and panic. I want to burn worry and its terror. I want to burn the world to extinguish the ever-smoldering children of anxiety.