Flying with Fire

I wasn’t sure I would ever find the words.

Maybe I haven’t yet. Maybe that is the point, the culmination of the feeling of tilting forward, edging toward the event horizon. There are no words for the sense of inversion, a dark pull turned inside out to expel the stars that have lived inside for years.

Some things are too beautiful to mar with language. Some things are to sacred to do justice with lackluster description.

There is a small mark on my hip still, one I hope stays. Perhaps it’s a poor negotiation style, but I know the risk of playing with fire, and a small burn is a welcome reminder of the moments when my skin and mind and soul reached silence. Those who saw me after, remember. Those who saw me after have never seen me so still. They tested my edges and found the tidal pull had abated, the hurricane settled, and celebrated with me in quiet joy.

Fire has this way of burning away the superfluous, the unnecessary, the facade. Fire has a way of illuminating the edges until they are fluid and malleable. I wanted to see you, and the moment that I finally could is the moment that everything quieted. I learned, in that moment, to trust the affection you have been trying to show me for months now. I could see, for just a brief moment, every piece of what lives inside your skin. I could hold it, easily, the way my skin holds and warms to the dancing flame. This is where we meet, you and I, in this space where I know fully what I can hold and you know viscerally who you are and we bring these selves forward without fear or shame or consternation.

We simply are.

And with the stars halo’d around your skin and a deeper light, your midnight purple emanating from within, I sink into the ground, comforted by your weight against my hips. It is this, flying in fire, grounded in the earth, that I am fully present with you. We were right to wait and, when we almost found a way to jumpstart this moment, this space was kind enough to reach across distance to hold us to patience. I’m glad I gave away the lighter that night. It prolonged waiting, but for good reason. I would not have had that any other way.

I told you I finally ran out of words, and laughed because it is both true and not true. That is the one scene I said I would be disappointed if it never came to fruition and with anticipation, there is always the byproduct of expectation.

This was, of course, not at all what I expected. It was better, surpassing what I could create in the quiet, dark moments of aching that built to this. Two firesigns meeting over shared embers, but what I always wanted was to see you illuminated within yourself. I would burn with you again, knowing fully that it would look different next time and finding comfort in knowing that the air we ignite changes the texture of the flame. I can hold transience, your shifting winds and my tempestuous stubbornness.

But these things needed to be said. I ran out of words, but this is etched into my skin, the memory of stillness wrapping me like a cloak that kept me safe in the darkness. There was a period in which I was invisible, a gift from the space to revel in the sense of quiet after months of frantic searching. A few moments to breathe before I needed to be a version of me that exists for more than just myself.

I saw you illuminated, your face dancing with the fire that extended outward from your hands. Which is to say, I found myself again, and could bring that forward so that you and I could finally meet.