Where Fire Has Been

October 12, 2012

 

Where fire has been there is now only smoke. It curls off the end of my cigarette as I stare into the night, wondering what is real.

Everything is quiet, but I am filled with a sense of tension, as if the world is about to come crashing down around me.

 

 

 

The smoke obscures the truth, creating an illusion of peace with its beauty. In reality, the smoke is thick and hot and it burns my throat with each inhale. It casts a misty shroud over my soul.

 

Nothing seems real. It feels as if I have been transported to a parallel world where everything is duller, quieter, heavier. I move as if in a void. No matter which way I turn, everything looks identical, gray.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there are now burning embers. As the smoke lifts, I begin to feel the heat still burning angrily underneath the wreckage of my heart.

This burning is painful and unceasing. This is not the burning of passion and glory, but rather one of hurt and hate. Its purpose is to destroy, not to illuminate.

 

 

 

The pathetic remnants of hope stretch upward, like the charred stumps of trees reaching for the sky.

 

Their existence only aggravates my fury. I want to burn you out of my mind, out of my soul.

 

 

 

Where fire has been, I wish for fire to blaze again. I fan the smoking embers that remain, hoping that something will catch flame and rise back into that blinding inferno.

There is only one issue: there is nothing left to ignite. Everything that was alive has been incinerated.

 

 

 

Those little dried up pieces of my heart that were so quick to leap up in flame have now been exhausted. My heart feels like an empty husk. Surely there is still something left deep down inside that the fire couldn’t burn, but try as I may, there is no way to reach it with a spark.

I’m not one to pray, but I find myself calling out to a God I don’t believe in, begging for help, for relief from this agony, for release from you. In the same breath, I am begging for you to return.

 

 

 

Where fire has been there is now only ash. The tears of the heavens quench the parched ground leaving everything damp and gray. The torrential downpour seems unceasing as I gasp for breath, choking on sorrow.

Breathing is a luxury that you take for granted until your lungs can’t find air. It is hard to move under water, hard to hear. Everything is suspended and cold…so cold. I wonder if I will ever be able to move again, to feel warmth.

 

 

 

I realize I’m drowning as water begins to pour into my lungs. I can’t even scream. Those remnants of hope? They are gone, washed away by the flood of tears. My lungs begin to burn with a desperate need for air.

How can I still be longing for you when I am so close to death? Shouldn’t my mind be focused on survival? My vision begins to go dark as the oxygen in my blood is depleted. What is this power you hold over me?

 

 

 

Where fire has been, life finally begins to sprout anew.

Rising from the ashes like a phoenix, tendrils of new growth brazenly forge a path amongst the destruction. Somehow life finds nourishment in the ash.

 

 

 

The scars of the fire are still visible beneath the green, where they will remain for some time yet, but there is at last a promise of healing, of hope.

I am still unable to forget about you, but the searing pain has been reduced to a dull ache. I have only just caught my breath, but if you asked me to, I would gladly walk through fire again.

 

 

 

 

***

     Towards the end of the summer, I had become so unwell that I knew I wouldn’t be able to face returning to work for the fall season.  I decided to quit my job and return to school so I could have my emotional breakdown and only jeopardize my grades, rather than my professional life.  I knew I needed the ability to randomly call out sick, to let my emotions get in the way of my professionalism, and to fail.  I also knew that the only thing that would help me rebuild my self esteem and find any sort of meaning in life was to create.  Losing M had created a vacuum in my soul.  I felt like a black hole that happiness could not touch without being obliterated. 

     This book was the result of a project in my photography class.  The professor had given everyone the prompt “Where fire has been” and asked us to create a series of images that worked as a narrative addressing the prompt.  I immediately knew the assignment was perfect for acting as a catharsis for my devastation.  I felt like my fire had been put out.  After losing what I believed was the one thing in life that I valued more than anything (finding my soul mate), my daily grind became a soul-killing routine.  M had become my fire.  I had loved him more deeply and intensely than anyone before him.  I believed I had found the meaning of my life through my spiritual connection with him. 

      By mid September, M had reentered my life, and by October we had begun sleeping with one another again.  I was in the middle of this project when he came back on the scene.  When I first told him about it, he sounded fairly upset.  I desperately wanted to show him the finished project, but I was worried what effect the image of me standing with a flaming arrow pointed at his portrait would have.  I described the violent image to him, emphasizing that it in no way was meant to symbolize me actually killing him, it was just a physical representation of the anger I felt toward him. 

     I was finally able to show him the finished book in December after it had been returned to me by my professor.  He looked thrilled.  His joy did not appear to be tempered with the negative emotions I was expecting.  He viewed the image of me wielding a weapon at his likeness with a smile on his face.  I was relieved, yet confused.  Of course I wanted to be praised for my art, but what about responding to those words I had written?

     I had gotten what I had been longing for all those months.  M was back in my life and praising my art.  I finally felt like maybe I could live up to his artistry and genius.  That night, he told me he realized how important what we had together was.  He took me into his bed and told me I was the only woman he had ever wanted to have babies with.  I was hearing all the things I wanted to hear, but something felt off.  I just couldn’t buy any of it after how he had disappeared the last time.

     I tried to bury my reservations with memories of all the beautiful things that had happened that evening.  We had gone grocery shopping together.  It felt so domestic and wonderful even though we had only bought a frozen pizza.  He had laughed heartily at something I had showed him on the internet.  I had never heard him laugh like that before.  It was exhilarating to know that he shared my sense of humor.  He gave me a CD of his music from earlier in his career.  It had the first song of his that I had fallen in love with 3 years prior.  I listened to the album on repeat in my car for days.  The juvenile love songs seemed appropriate for this new turn of events.

     Looking back, I fear all of this was an act designed to lure me back in as he prepared to dump A.  I had finally bent so far over backwards for him that he thought I might be able to fill the role of his primary relationship.  I, however, had thought that battle was long won and I was the lone victor.  When I finally decided to unblock M on facebook later that week (ironically because I was beginning to trust him and not feel jealous of his lady friends anymore), I was shocked to see he was still friends with A on there.  Suspicious, I asked a mutual friend of ours if I could look at his facebook page on her computer.  I saw photo after photo of him with A up to a week prior to that date.  I was shocked. 

     I of course confronted him.  Knowing he was caught, he admitted they had been seeing each other but “I see her less than you.”  He told me that there were others, that there would always be others, that he couldn’t do monogamy.  I asked him if she knew about me.  His biggest mistake was telling me “no.”  I debated for a week and then I decided to contact her.  But that is a post for another day.