Every so often, I set fire to my life
believing I’m practicing alchemy.

I touch a match to it, and my world
explodes into red roar roaring flames of anger
or slowly boils dry on blue licks of lust.

It combusts with the bright yellow heat of ambition
or disintegrates into white-hot flashes of self-loathing,
singeing me with its howling ferocity.

Sometimes it ignites in a green burst of envy,
choking the air with the acrid scent of regret,
or blooms with the slow, torturous orange glow of despair.

Each time, afterwards,
I poke through the remains looking for something precious enough
to pay the cost of all the wreckage I’ve left.
I stir the ruins of each separate immolation with a stick —
as though they were tea leaves to be read for meaning —
before sweeping the mess into the dustbin
and starting again.

It’s only recently I’ve realized that the answer was always there,
that all I had to do was listen to the wind
lifting the edges of the swirling debris:

“Put away the matches. Stop this madness.
You solve nothing with all of this beautiful destruction.
No matter what brilliant color the flame

all ash is grey.”

For my friends and family, especially David. Thank you for lending me courage.

Sometimes you have to admit

the only thing holding you back

is fear.

But you don’t just let it go, contrary to all the advice —

oh, no! —

wrap your arms tightly around it,

crush it to your chest

and jump off that cliff anyway.

And then what?

Use it as a floatation device?:

“In case of an emergency landing,

slip your arms through the straps

and hold your fear close.”

Comical.

You imagine the instructions read

in a clipped British accent.

“Keep calm and expose your vulnerable bits.

Hook-beaked vultures

are standing by.”

But then you slowly open your tightly-shut eyes

and unclench your jaw

and see that you’ve landed —

not broken, among vultures —

but whole and welcomed by open-hearted friends,

supported by generous hearts.

You re-examine that stone anchor of fear you leapt with

and find buried within it the raw kernels

of courage.