Fire and Other Feelings

A sample of Fire and Other Feelings

Fire and Other Feelings

by Ambivalently Yours

Thought Catalog Books — thoughtcatalog.com — New York • Los Angeles

Copyright © 2022 Ambivalently Yours. All rights reserved.

Published by Thought Catalog Books, an imprint of the digital magazine Thought Catalog, which is owned and operated by The Thought & Expression Company LLC, an independent media organization based in Brooklyn, New York and Los Angeles, California.

This book was produced by Chris Lavergne and Noelle Beams. Special thanks to KJ Parish for print art direction and Isidoros Karamitopoulos for circulation management.

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Made in the United States of America.

ISBN 978-1-949759-55-6

(drawings, poems & stories)

Fire — 1

There is a small town somewhere in the United States that has been on fire for 60 years. The fire was set intentionally and innocently to clear a landfill, but unexpectedly took possession of a network of abandoned coal mines that slept under the entire town. What started as a controlled burn got so out of hand that to this day, no one has been able to put the fire out. The flames are not flamboyantly present, they mostly live in the dark, under splitting roads and small houses habitually filling with toxic gas. When it was understood that the fire was too stubborn to be tamed, authorities gave up their firefighting and decided to relocate all of the town’s residents instead. A few inhabitants stayed behind, committing to living a life on fire, because even in a ramshackle state the town was still their home. I’m not sure if their resolution is bravery or recklessness, but as someone who is on fire herself, all I can think is, "I know how you feel."

I can’t remember when my fire started. Maybe I was on fire before my memory learned how to hold onto things. Maybe the fire crept in so slowly, I just didn’t notice it.

When I say "on fire" I don’t use the word "fire" as a metaphor for passion or rage, or any other dramatic emotion that fire is asked to carry. For me it is all very literal: sometimes I just catch fire.

The fire doesn’t cause me tangible pain or leave visible marks. The flames are tempered to my body heat, they slip through my skin like thieves, quick and greedy. They are a physical reaction that takes and breaks, reveals, and recedes, like tides but hotter. I think the fire is tethered to something inside of me that I can’t quite touch, something that wants to assert itself. It excavates without permission, I witness it without will.