Sometimes the kitchen is on fire before you even turn on the stove.
and maybe it's a small fire,
one you never saw coming.
maybe your absentmindedness caught up with you again and you put foil in the microwave.
maybe no one was there to remind you that sometimes looks are deceiving.
maybe you got used to holding the knife wrong.
which would explain why you found it in your back so many times when all you were trying to do was cut the fat off of his steak.
you just wanted to cut off the parts he never liked.
maybe you weren't holding a knife at all.
maybe that's why his lips bled every time he spat out "I love you too" after a fight.
maybe that was your first mistake.
or maybe your first mistake was trying to use the stove in the first place.
they're dangerous,
and your mom never liked you to do unnecessarily dangerous things.
but where is the line for things that have become necessarily dangerous?
and when did you cross it?
This isn't a metaphor.
I really am afraid of being burned.
I never go out into the sun for too long.
I keep my curling iron on the lowest setting.
it wasn't until you came along that I got in the habit of forgetting such fears.
Now I have these reckless tendencies.
I'm no longer satisfied with my tan until I can feel the sun poisoning boiling in my skin.
Suddenly my hair no longer curls on the lowest setting, only at 450 degrees.
and I never bother turning it off.
It has an automatic setting.
or maybe you became the automatic setting
when I stopped loving myself to love you
and maybe now that you're gone it doesn't bother me that this setting is gone.
maybe it doesn't bother me if my house goes up in flames.
maybe I'm not afraid of being burned
because the fire never burned me
as bad as you did.
and I just can't seem to remember what is real
and what is simply a figment of you.
I can remember the way the flames felt as they brushed my face,
but never your fingers.
So maybe that is the line where playing with fire becomes necessarily dangerous.
Tell my mom I crossed it years ago.