I didn't see it coming.
 

The spark, the smoke, the flame.
 

All I remember is that one day I realized I was completely engulfed in flames. I still don't know how long I burned before I finally noticed.

 

Fire that was, at first, so hot that it was ice cold to the touch, which left me numb.
 

This length of frozen time are mostly blocked from my memories. I see flashes, remember times when I stared at the plastered ceiling and wondered, "Why am I so cold?"
 

It was the emptiness that felt like forever, though I'm not made of fuel and couldn't burn continually. When I came to, the fire seemed unbeatable, for it had grown taller than my home. It engulfed my surroundings and I remembered what it was like to fear again. What it was to feel. Instead of the cold, the apathy, the emptiness that I had felt for so long, I was cast into a burning oven that seared every emotion, pain, and word into my body, words that would be etched into my skin until I died.  Finally, I cried as I watched my home and the forest surrounding it fell until my tears watered the dead ground.
 

I had the privilege to burn.
 

This fire that hurt so bad kept me from sitting in the darkness for too long. Yes, it burned down my heart and everything I'd ever known - I was forced to build everything back up with the surrounding rocks and surviving, brittle wood. It was hard, and I didn't have my home back that day. In fact, I never had that same building again. There were no soft pillows at first, no closed doors, no beautiful artwork that I'd spent so much time making. On the days it rained, it poured, and I hardly had a roof over my head to protect me from it all.
 

Despite that, I was free. I couldn't see it at the time, but the grass, flowers, and trees that grew from then on grew brighter than before.

 

Because there was no roof anymore, I suddenly saw the stars, the lights that shined through darkness. I found myself appreciating the feeble house I had begun rebuilding. It filled me with hope, to see all that I could do for myself, even if it wasn't as beautiful as those paintings from before.
 

When I look back on it now, I find myself cheering on the past and present flames. I don't wish for the times I stared at the ceiling in dull silence, or painted the saddest melodies.  I watch them as they come. This won't be the last time I'll have to rebuild something. Maybe I'll need to rebuild a room, or a piece of furniture. When the time comes, I'll use rocks and stones as my tools and pain as my strength.
 

Keep burning, I tell both it and myself. You don't want to die out.