Burn

They tell how it was...1

                     and how it happened again and again.2

                                         -William Stafford 'Scars'3

I arrange the blue and black candles in a circle around the small glass bowl on the coffee table. I break the chopsticks in threes and dump them inside, straightening them so that they stick up. I'm sitting in the dark. The only light coming forth from the open window above the bed casts gray shadows on the walls. It's dim outside. Eerie and cold-damp. Water has stopped pouring from the sky, it doesn't rumble. Everything is still except for the swishing is the leaves. I pick up a lighter and set the candles and the chopsticks on fire, watching the orange and yellow flames dance, waving like flags. 4

Fingers dangle above the heat, the tips just barely touching my skin. I'm daring it to scorch me, willing it. I toss a few matches into bonfire-they spark before they burst. Kind of like firecrackers. I wonder what it feels like to have fire surrounding you, charring your flesh to ashes, to nothing. I admire of Joan of Arc. She was caught up in the flames. I would not feel any pain. I've never felt it before all those times I've burned myself. Letting the flames kiss me with it's blistering lips. It keeps me calm. Takes all the pain away. I love it.5

Feet paddle across the hallway outside of the bedroom. People with big feet can never walk silently. Zan opens the door and stares at me. He's holding my cup of coffee-the first thing I asked for when I showed up at his doorstep this morning. I haven't told him anything yet. Not sure that I want to. I owe him an explanation though,6

He sets the cup down in front of me, flopping down on the flat pillow beside me. I don't look at him. Just gaze at the flames. Zan sighs. He was been trying to get me to talk ever since I showed up, but I keep brushing him off, avoiding his questions. I ponder inside my head for words. What will I say exactly? How can I explain?7

He clears his throat, laying his hand over mine. 8

I flinch.9

'So,' he says feebly,rubbing my fingers together. 'Are you going to tell me?'10

I shrug. I am not completely sure what  i want to do at the moment. I've tried to come up with a plan, they're all bad and useless. The wax on the candles slowly begins to melt and forms tiny puddles around themselves. I sip some coffee. Zan sighs again. He's always sighing. It annoys me a little. I am not good with beginnings. They stretch far to long and the middle is complicated and jumbled up. And the ending...is easy to tell but doesn't make sense if you skip the beginning and the middle. I am not good at summing things up either. I trip over my words and confuse myself. 11

The flame in the bowl is dieing down. I pick up three matches and fling them in. It lives again.12

It's inky outside now. The small light disappears. No gray shadows. Just faint yellow and orange light glowing now. I open my mouth,13

'It's a long story.'14

I glance at him. His focus is on the bonfire, burning on the table. He nods slowly.15

It's best to start with the obvious: I ran away from home. Actually before that I skipped school for two weeks, hanging out with a bunch of stoners and goths at the sandlot behind P & G's gas station; snorting chalk and tattooing skull heads around my ankles. Then I ran away from home. Before that though I had a fight with my dad and stepmom. They grounded me. They found out I took a long vacation.16

The next day we traveled to the nearest therapist office so they could screw my head back on or replace the old ones. Then I ran away. Right after I nicked two-hundred out of my brother's room.17

I can hear cars whizzing past on the flooded road.  A few dogs bark at the sound of a thunderclap. Zan is not speaking anymore. He isn't at looking at me. His back is turned.18

I light another match, let it touch the palm of my hand. It burns. But it doesn't hurt. The white flesh on my hands are yellow, yellow like snot, or puke. They're not even beautiful anymore.19

I ruined them.20

They were pretty...like my mothers. I remember her hands. Thoughs big hands and long fingers. There was always knitting sticks between those fingers making ponchos and hats for me. I remember dad telling me how I had her hands. Her strong hands that worked so hard everyday. He said we had the hands of workers. Powerful workers. That can pull the weeds and tares out of the earth and nourish it with care. 21

Sounds new age a little. Sounds dumb. But that's what he said. And I believed him.22

I try to picture mom's hands whenever I singe mine-but I can't. I can only see them afterwards: pink, sweaty,long, and delicate; cradling my miniature chubby ones. My hands are ugly. They look old.23

The match dies.  24

I half smile. I am thinking about before the two-hundred dollars-when I fought with my parents. He said I was just like her, going downhill, heading towards disaster. I was a wreckage,destroying myself and I didn't care. Broken ship that is what I am. 25

'They were sending me to a group home. That's why I ran. Thats why I'm here.'26

Zan faces me, attentive. It takes me awhile to realize that I've spoken.  I don't say anything else for a long time.27

They were mailing me to the lonny bin to live with other psychopaths. To sit in a stuffy,smelly office with a boring shrink. I was convicted and going to jail. For a long time, they said. But not the part about conviction and prison, though dad did mention that's where I was headed if I did straighten up.28

I hate circle time. I hate group homes. Most of all, I hate shrinks. They're not interested in helping me. All they're concerned about is that fat paycheck they receive afterwards.29

I snort a laugh.  Zan smiles.30

'I would rather die then go to arkum asylum.' 31

Zan chuckles.32

The candles have half-way melted down. I lean against his black trunk full of dirty clothes.33

'Thats why I ran away,'  I repeat ' That's why I ran away.'34

Zan nods, glimpsing at the flames again. The chopsticks won't burn anymore. They're burnt out.35

'Didn't your mom go to a mental hospital?' He says, melting a circle of wax over burning candle.36

'Yep.' I nod. ' sure did.'37

Dad had her admitted-seven months after he and her divorced. She had a mental breakdown. A really bad one. She wasn't cooking. She wasn't cleaning. She wasn't being mother to me. I had to take care of myself. All she would do was drink, smoke, and play with her lighter. She was always angry. Always depressed. I remember her stench-becuase she wouldn't take a shower. Especially when her period was on. I had to talk her into it. She wasn't stable enough to take care of me on her own. People think my mom was depressed because of the divorce and they blame my dad. But they don't know that she always did kind of have emotional problems.38

But I loved her still.39

Guess all that rubbed off on me.40

'Like mother, like daughter.' I say.41

Zan scoffs.42

'Yeah. Right.'43

I flip through his school books, algebra and geometry-crap I don't understand. He has a few notes scribbled on paper, a letter from a freind : meet me at the bookstore friday morning.44

I'm tired. It's not yet eight o'clock. I want to sleep. I've been up all night.  Zan and I are not having the conversation I hoped to have. My fault. I'm not really telling him much. The sky grows darker and darker. Almost eclipsed. I pray for the sun not to shine again for at least three days. 45

Zan gets up and blows out the remaining candles. He stretches his arms over his head, and yawns, moving toward the bed. He looks down at me. He is so tired. His eyes are gray and heavy. 46

'So-tomorrow?'47

His books dart across the room. He frowns. 48

'Yeah,' I say 'Tomorrow.' 49

He sighs, accepting this, pulling down the blinds, falling back onto his floppy mattress. I take of my sweat shirt and crawl under the sheets.  I peer at his alarm clock-7:26 it reads. They should know I'm gone by now. Glad Zan's parents are out of town. This is the last place my parents would suspect I'd be. They don't know about Zan.50

I stare up at the ceiling and count the popcorn. They look like flames.  I kick Zan's head.51

He rolls over and glares at me.52

'Wanna see something?'  53

He sighs. I hate it when he sighs so much.54

'What?' he mutters.55

I motion for him to come here. When he's close, I lift up my white tank and point to my stomach and my arms. It's not that dark in here-even though the blinds are covering the window. you can see the outlines, gray and zig zaggy. They kind of look like splattered paint. He gasps.56

I know what he sees. Jagged fat,thin, and think scars-from the fire. 57

His fingers trace the scars traveling up and down, right and left, on my body. He presses a fresh one, one that stings a little. I wince.58

'Sorry.'59

I shake my head and lay down on a pillow. 60

'Now you know why I'm going to the loony bin.' 61

Zan just stares at me-sympathetically.  He lays down beside me and holds my hand.62

I want to cry. But I have no tears. 63

'They look ugly don't they? My hands?' 64

He examines them from every angle, his finger nails pinching the hard crusty parts. The parts I try to peel off. 65

'No.' he finally says. 66

I nod. I think of my mother. I wonder where she is, and how she is doing. I haven't seen her in five years. Wonder if she misses me or even thinks of me. Or can remember what I look like and what my name is.67

It thunders. It is going to rain again.68

Zan's eyes are half way closed when I look at him.69

'Want to talk about it now?' he whispers.70

'No,' I say. 'I'm tired.'71

But I really do want to.72

He nods and pulls the cover over his head. In three minutes he's asleep, snoring softly.73

I stare up at the ceiling watching the flames dance. In my dreams I am standing in a sea of lava,  body consumed by fire. 74

And I see my mom. Standing in the center.75