pyromania by Ava O’Malley 

 
One wine soaked twilight scented 
by woodsmoke and lighter fluid, 
an ember floated up from the fire 
and kissed my bare thigh.
Ten things that came to mind: 

1. The short spark of pain felt like a sigh 
2. I was always afraid of this happening as a child 
3. What do you call something that causes pain but does not inflict a serious injury? A nuisance?
4. Why did ancient man see fire as survival rather than destruction? 
5. What would it feel like if I was immune to pain and stuck my hand into flames? Would fire feel like
   wind? Water? Nothing? Something? 
6. Do burn victims remember the feeling of fire, or just the pain that came with it?
7. Where does fire go once it is put out? 
8. What is the average lifespan of an ember? 
9. How often do embers cause wildfires? 
10. Is pain considered an injury? 
    The ember died against my skin, 
    It’s light blinking out like a final breath,
    And I thought of you. 
    I pondered the pain of leaving,
    And it’s coalescence with the ache of staying
    Still.  I thought about how we were desperate  
    to ensure that the other felt no pain. 
    I would rather die by fire, 
    An explosion of trees or an ashtray blaze, 
    Than by water,  
    A shipwreck or a torpedoed submarine, 
    Gagging on salty water 
    And pulled to a place where things 
    Could still be recovered. 
    If pain is considered an injury, 
    I could press charges against you. 
    I could hire one of those lawyers
    From the highway billboards,
    With eyebrows arched in stern promise
    And their phone numbers a convenient repetition,
    Seven seven seven, seven seven seven seven. 
    I could call off work and still get paid 
    To recover and rest and tuck away 
    All of the photos of us into a box
    That my roommate lent me out of pity. 

“I need a place to put him” I said,
And she returned with a little wooden book, 
The top perforated into a pattern– 
Little breathing holes for something dead. 
An ember floated from the fire, 
And I thought of us, escaping from roar of the world 
Just to snuff out 
After only making it so far.

Ava O’Malley (she/her) is an MFA in Writing and Publishing student at DePaul University. Her writing typically focuses on queerness, spirituality, memory, and nostalgia. She spends her free time looking at astrocartography charts, cooking, and taking meandering nature walks. You can find her poetry in Moonflake Press, Belt Magazine, The Orange Couch, and Crook & Folly. She currently resides in Chicago, but was born and raised in Cleveland, OH. You can reach her at @AvaOWrites on Twitter, and @ava.omalley on instagram.