11 - Fiyaz/We don’t belong in the dark/

I was bred in a pool of desire.

In this very room. Everything about me had both risen and fallen. And yet, it doesn't hold its old magic anymore. None of its old, nostalgic lust was left after the fire. In my youth, I remember how this place would shine with the dusty warmth that my mother had held me with. It´s everything my parents had ever desired. So it´s what I want to.

It was always dusted with sunlight, blazing sun. My mother always had a thing for the sun. Sun is who brought life. My earliest memories were held in this small, modest room. My legs bent on the rough carpet, my cheeks always painted with sunlight. Wherever the sun was, my mother was. My mother was the majority of the intimacy in my young life. Therefore, wherever she was, I was. I was always in the sun.

Being in the spotlight, and being in the sun are two very different things. They are both often mistaken. Being in the spotlight, you are bound by ropes, burning your red elbows and aching knees. To always thrive. To always perform perfectly. To be the second breed of humanity, to be significant. You either die in the spotlight, or you run that shit as if the world is your creation.

Being in the sun is all the right amount of humbling, and yet so incredibly empowering. The feeling of red, hot light pouring down every nook and curve on your skin. It can make one feel perfectly serene, and beautiful. Yet, still perfectly protected.

You use this light, to absorb it, to grow. To survive. But here´s the thing, sunlight kills. When in the sunlight, you must be careful not to burn, absorb the kinetic energy and scorch others. But, not everyone is careful.

My fathers´ voice chirps, ¨Why are you awake, it´s so late?¨

I blink.

My legs grew, and my baby clothes turn into a small sweater and leggings. I went from a toddler to a child in kindergarten. Now, no sunlight poured through the windows.

Instead, the stillness of the night restyled outside the tall windows. At this time in my life, I saw the night, the moonlight, and the dark atmosphere of the morning; to be scary, and full of monsters. As I got older, I learned to fall in love with the night. To see the night as a gorgeous, black beauty. A wild one. That´s when I became one of the monsters who lived in the dark when I finally got older.

But that was much later. I was still afraid of the dark. I look down at my knees. There were no toys surrounding me. In fact, I was just sitting in the middle of a now, empty room. ¨I don´t remember coming here.¨

My father frowns and scratches the back of his neck. ¨Ah, well, maybe it was sleepwalking. Just…let´s try and get back to sleep.¨

I brush off my sweater and shakingly stand up. With big eyes, just like the moon outside. I ask, ¨Dad, why are you awake?¨

He looks down, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the dark tattoo on his forearm. It had always looked alien, on his pale, bony skin, in my opinion. ¨I was just getting ready for work.¨

I know he starts work later in the day. ¨But don´t y-¨

¨STOP!¨

The atmosphere shifts again. This time, it hurts to blink. Now I am 7 years old. I´m still only a kid. The room is up in flames. The windows have been broken. The ugly, eggshell wallpaper burns off the walls. The rugged carpet, the one that I´ve hated all my childhood, was aflame. At some point, the fire on the carpet found its way to spread its way over to me. I don´t move, I know I can´t.

Honestly, what´s truly sick, is that I thought the scene was pulchritudinous. Utterly beautiful. I look at the room that I had spent most of my childhood in, burn. And I believe it´s beautiful. I look at this misery. And I´m sick enough to find it alluring. From the array of angry oranges, and deep reds sweeping the room. A part of me wants to run in the fire´s embrace, to lay there. To let the flame melt my skin from my bones like wax.

I hear my mother howl. ¨What do you mean, gone?!¨

I spin around, shocked. Still, I was met with the same angry strokes of red wherever I looked.

My mother continues to scream, somewhere. ¨He-He…what? No…no…no….no. He would never…he….this is my husband. TELL ME THE TRUTH!¨

My grandpa´s sturdy tone decides, ¨Take a deep breath, girl. No one knows why he did what he did.¨

The air suddenly becomes crisp. Too crisp. The shock makes me shiver, and the hair on my arms raises. By the second, the room continues to get colder. With a newfound thrashing, the frigid wind begins to beat against the back of my neck. I wrap my arms around myself and drop to my knees.

Flame and bitter smoke continue to illuminate the room. ¨NO. I-I…HE WAS SUPPOSED TO…HIS DAUGHTER'S BIRTHDAY, NONETHELESS! HOW COULD HE?! THAT SELFISH PRICK HE-¨ Mom pauses to let out a sharp sob. ¨HE HAS TWO, GORGEOUS CHILDREN. A LIFE. AND YET...he picked her.¨

I´d heard my mother yell before, as it was at me. But I´d never heard her, or been old enough to remember, this. How she was crumbling, how she sounded so distraught. I was dazed, so confused, and so cold. My mother was the strongest woman I´ll ever meet, hearing her sound so utterly in distress struck something else in my body. I didn’t even know who she was talking about anymore.

¨Look at me.¨ My grandfather pauses, his accent being the only thing I recognized at the moment. ¨You, my girl, are smart. Your siblings ran away to start a new life for themselves when you were all young. You ran away to start a life for all of us. You know how to do this. But you cannot battle the world like this.¨

I could tell he wasn´t used to seeing her crumble into a furious mess, like this one. Her sobs turned into another raw howl.

¨I can get through this. Can they? I have two little kids! How can I explain that their father simply didn't want them? How could I-how could I ever possibly explain that?! THEY ARE ONLY KIDS.¨

I could hear the frown in grandpa´s voice, ¨And they´ll have to learn, as you had to.¨

The air gets thicker now. ¨Daddy…how¨ She stops, letting a damp sop rip from her throat.

Quickly, my throat closes in. I clutch my stomach. A sharp pain hammers me in my chest. My lungs weakly heave as I fall over into a coughing fit. And still, I cannot move. Maybe I´m not supposed to. I think. That I need to feel this. I need to feel this, to feel all that I´d forgotten.

I blink, it feels colder this time. Fake. My fathers' nervous voice reaches through the flames. Both of the room and the flame that makes up every wall I´ve built to block that son of a bitch out.

¨I can´t keep doing this.¨

My mother calmly responds, keeping her cool. ¨Doing what? Loving your family?¨

My father does not know how to hold his cool. ¨Yes. Yes, I am.¨

Woozy colors lace their fingers together, clouding my vision. I can still hear the fire flickering in the background. The flame, of a fire that never happened. I know that now. My brain created this, Explosive blues, greens, and pinks blend together on the white canvas of what smothers my vision. Slowly, it all clicks. The pieces interlock. My vision fades to black, to darkness.

What was different, was that this dark meant I was going home. The dark he left us in was utterly sickening.

-

Quickly I gain consciousness. My eyes open wide as I roll over and wrap my arms around myself. Around my ribs, my pounding, angry heart, everything in me that was trying to breathe, to figure out what just happened.

I´m safe. I´m in bed. Papers, magazines, dirty clothes, the familiar smell of the freezing night air. Mom is in her bed, catching up on sleep for work tomorrow. My brother is in his room, dreaming of something ridiculous. Well, I guess I was too, wasn't I?

It had all felt so real. Although, my childhood room had never been burnt down. In fact, by the time I was 7 (as I was in the dream when the room was burning), we had moved out. Nothing had ever gone up in flames. I never had a memory of the night my dad left, I don´t know what all that was. My tongue feels sour.

It all felt so real.