Wildfire

TW: Implied emotional abuse

    She was beautiful. She was perfect even as she flamed: a wildfire burning down anything she touched. Even as the fire burned, licking at their soul, scorching them, they couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she looked in the light of the flickering flames.
    “Fuck you. I hate you.”
    “I’m sorry,” they said, still unsure as to why they were apologizing for being burned.
    “You never listen to me.”
    They did, they did. How could they not listen and watch and be completely enraptured by the dancing fire? They didn’t know why the fact that they didn’t have the answer she wanted was the same thing as not listening to her.
    “Just shut up. Shut the fuck up. I’m talking.” She was desperate, flames reflecting in the pool of tears in her eyes. How? How had they been the one to make her cry, to make her scream, to make her burn?
    No, that wasn’t fair. She had always burned. Tending to her was like tending to a loosely contained fire. Any mishap, any mistake, would send the inferno to new heights. It wasn’t hard to fan the flames and set her off. The slightest misstep from them was like gasoline.
    They didn’t know how they kept messing up. She was an angry, fiery person. But that’s what made her so beautiful. Shouldn't they have learned how to avoid it by now? Shouldn’t they have learned how to just suck it up and make her happy? That’s what she said they should’ve done, anyways. 
    Was there any way to appease a wildfire? They weren’t sure. A wildfire wasn’t happy being contained, held back, and cursed for its nature. It wasn’t her fault that she had to burn and consume everything around her. It was the way a fire worked, afterall. Without fuel, she’d die off. It was in her nature to destroy.
    But what of the forest? What of the towering, centuries-old pines who met their end at the hand of the blazing inferno? What of the bushes and the brambles who’d spent their entire lives trying to grow, only to become mere kindling for the wildfire? What of the creatures—birds and critters and hunters—who had to flee their homes, their safe places, to escape the choking heat of the flames?
    Why didn’t they matter?
    It wasn’t the fires’ fault. They knew that. She couldn’t help but burn and scorch and destroy. But why did they have to stick around to be the kindling?