Q&A on What It Feels Like to Be on Fire

What does it feel like to be on fire

In order to write this poem 

I interviewed some specific guests

First my kitchen

He told me a bunch of cuss words that I probably shouldn’t include in this poem

But I did catch one thing from his speech full of profanities

That he is really scared of fire now

Even though he has to live with it everyday 

Second my finger

She wasn’t much nicer

But she did tell me that it burned

And she was numb for a really long time afterward 

She would be holding ice and wouldn’t feel a thing

She felt as invulnerable as the devil

But she didn’t know whether it was because she really possessed the power

Or because there was no place on her body to receive the pain anymore

Third firecrackers

He was the one that tangled with fire the longest time out of all of my guests

He told me that there is so much more to fire than just burning

Fire was magic for him

It inspired this potential in him to give out light

To guide the lost through dark

To save the lamp from overheating 

To coax laughs out of children

He wanted everyone to look at him

In that short span of his lifetime

Fire gave him all the attention he needed

It was the best time of his life

It was the only time of his life

Fourth my heart 

It never answered me 

I wonder if it is in ashes already 

And the feelings I’m feeling now are merely grey particles 

that I’m trying to interpret as red and blue

I don’t remember how it was burned

But I do remember trying to build a glass wall around it

So the fire outside can’t get in

But your burning desire made my heart shake a little 

And the wall had this crevice 

This tiny crevice

I ignored it because I thought that it would be too small for fire to get in

I have forgotten that it is never the fire that kills

It is the smoke

So I was suffocated to death when the black smoke came into the chamber of my heart

And my heart wasn’t on fire

There was no burning

I wasn’t numbed

My heart was still intact and nothing is melting off the surface

It was simply dead

Now I realize I have asked the wrong question

What I wanted to know 

Was what it feels like to survive a fire