noteface

The candle by my bed is a graveyard for anything that needs burning. Empty muffin cases and used matches and forgotten hand-writing. Sometimes the light springs from the glass cylinder it sits in, reaching up towards the electric light. I worry it might catch fire but not enough to put it out. I sit the waiting box of matches right next to it and wonder what would happen if the whole thing flamed.

The mangled plastic around it which holds my high school emblem reeks. It reeks like that plastic-furred orange jacket you burnt outside in the barzier. The burning which made the neighbours come over to check if we were O.K. at number 11. Yes, we're fine thank you. So fine we'll run away to the second-best, almost-here land. Malnourished and burned.

Which came first, I wonder?

Maybe I'll take the legs off my bed and live low-life like you. I am very good at wanting everything. I want each thing exactly when it suits me. I want the damn cupcake paper to catch alight and settle with the wick, but it keeps burning itself out.

When it finally catches, it stinks fucking awful. Oh, we're really raging now. Orange jumping up the wall. Reflecting in the green. I came green into this house and stunk my lungs out this same colour. From bright hyper-pink bathwater holders. Left the evidence out to be ignored by new flatmates.  Is it ok to inhale aluminium? Probably not. You know what else I am good at? Getting fucked up and then waking up early without effect.

I don't know why I want the dark so much when I was raised on light. When I have this incessant need to see.

My pillowcases are near turned black now. There's wax all up the wall - it looks like spilled beer. I wonder if anyone's ever fallen asleep with their candle on?