Insatiable

Flames have an insatiable hunger. Their wide-open, gaping maws release a wet heat that stains your face red and draws layers of sweat and grime. Its tongue is long and teeth white and sharp, blistering and defiling all that comes into contact with it. 

The fire is in charge. When it's hungry, it eats–regardless of the contents of its meal. Its saliva will drench the clothes of those sleeping under the thick blankets of night and wrap around them like a python playing with its food just before its jaw snaps closed. When it wants your home, you simply leave. You may cry and beg, but the fire is ravenous, and you are nothing in its shadow. It will salivate over the grass and frot against brick walls, relishing every moment of the rape.

The fire ate my home long ago. I knew what to expect; I'd heard countless tragedies from those who had experienced this loss before me. It crouched, beady eyes glaring at me through my window before pouncing. I never understood the concept of a time paradox until this moment. Deafening footsteps dragged on while I remained frozen and fixated. There was a strange sense of wonder when I met its gaze. The timer had a mind of its own–hours turned to minutes which turned into seconds. My home. 

I didn't want to abandon it. My memories were there; my fingerprints, my photographs–the only things I had left. I wouldn't leave my home–I couldn’t leave it. My home gave me shelter and peace. It let me hide when I was weak and the world had hurt me too much to continue on. This home was my mother's and was going to be my daughter’s. 

I held my home's paneling and sobbed as it was devoured. The fire took savage, unrelenting bites that melted the walls and scorched the ceiling like a vicious leprosy. I could feel the bones of my home cracking and blood seeping from the grout. Weak weeping echoed where the ash fell.

I held hands with my sister and span with her on those floors while our brains drank in the scent of candles and soap and peppered eggs and a floral perfume. My brother blew out birthday candles, and we clapped and sang, and my father held me on the couch, rubbing my hair while I cried into his shoulder over a boy who'd grown bored with me. There'd been something here so bright and beautiful and human there, it melted through the drywall and gave life to something once cold. 

I listened to the quiet whimpers and moans of my home as it was eaten alive, and I sobbed with it as the same happened to me. I would never abandon my home, which stood guard as I slept and greeted me with sunshine every morning. I will never leave it.