When I was born, my ears busted,

I listened to music as loud as it can go,

My ears could not take the sound, so they just bust.

I do not have to worry about that anymore,

I am deaf, I cannot hear the combustion

But I can feel it in my heart and soul.

The heat of the spontaneous combustion,

Burning flames that spread and increase,

The sparks of the deafening explosions,

Creating a chaotic scene.

I feel the heat of the fire,

I can feel it in my veins,

The soundless combustion,

Making me numb with pain.

I try to block it out,

But it still lingers on,

The silent combustion,

That will never be gone.

I may not be able to hear it,

But I can feel its power,

The silent combustion,

That will forever tower.

I remember the first time it happened. The pounding of my heart, the anger, the rage. I remember how I gave in, and the horror that followed right after. The screams of agony and terror, and the smell of burning cloth and hair. I remember stumbling as I backed away, struggling to take in what was happening right in front of my eyes.

"What did you do?! What the fuck did you do?!" someone shouted at me. I didn't know.

I remember getting up and running away as fast as I could, the agonizing screams of my bully and panicked shouts of his friends echoing through the woods. I remember running until my feet hurt and my lungs burned, and then running more.

I remember the effects of adrenaline wearing off and the unbearable pain in my hands kicking in. I remember realizing, as I was bandaging the burns, that what happened back in the woods wasn't some freakish accident. It was me.

My anger. My rage. My fire. It lashed out of me, right at the person I hated.

It wasn't spontaneous. I wanted it to happen. I wanted to hurt him.

And it felt good.

I sit in the shadows of eternal darkness. My penance. My punishment. I crave the daylight! No longer able to ignore the need festering in my soulless heart.

It ends today! This journey of endless sorrows. Oh how I longed for dawn! The bright sunlight of a clear day. To bask in the glory of the sun's rays as they bathe my being with warmth. With love.

I thought I was beyond that feeling. Felt that it's emotion was for the weak, those who had to have another to be whole. To be fulfilled.

Now at the end of my journey I realize too late the part I was missing. The part where I yearned for the touch of another, the feeling of completedness. The bliss of consumation that only comes from the other half of us. A binding union not mete in blood. But of an eternal bond. A boundless love that encompasses both. That leaves no room for doubt or fear.

I thought the cold and dark were all I needed. To feel the power of another's life as it flowed through my fingers. To have supreme control of all the things that make humans weak and fragile.

I told myself countless lies for centuries. Lies that temporarily fed the empty places in my frozen body.

Why did I have to meet her! Why did I find myself drawn to what I assumed were the frail beats of a weakened heart. Her blood was a symphony. Playing a music that stirring what I assumed was a passion to have inside me!

As she lay dying I glimpse it then, her overwhelming zeal to live in spite of her pain! Her fervent wish to see the dawn once more!

Now I sit here praying for dawn to cleanse me of this unforgivable sin. To purge myself from this world with finality. To combust with the certainty of my doom. It is only my just payment. Final and irreversible. For taking her from this world. I eagerly await the dawn...

I

She said I was bright blue when I was born, that they had to rush to put me under heat lamps. I wonder about that, an allergic reaction to exiting the womb. But it was only the fuse.

Turning sixteen felt like crushing up my birthday cake and sticking it behind a napkin on my plate. It tasted like apples, only 45 calories if you get a small one. I ate two apples a day for an entire summer as my only sustenance; the summer I turned sixteen was a test - could I continue to survive life, living in a "blues" state of mind?

Someone once said you go broke slowly, then all at once. Depression is like that. One day you're a happy little girl, brought back to life by heat, and then the next day the heat consumes you - a flame that festers, and then catches hold of every single neuron you had hoped could connect to serotonin.

I still can't really believe I survived being sixteen; perhaps I am a phoenix, rising from the ashes, but I'm probably just average.

Flames can be blue at the base. Perhaps I have merely risen from my natural state - hot, cold, a contradiction and an omen of what is to come.

15:00

A blank canvas, a blank mind.

Tick tick tick.

14:25

Still ticking.

14:00

Nope, nothing here, time to go.

13:45

Whoa! A spark, an incendiary idea.

13:03

Spontaneous combustion, words in motion.

An ocean of thoughts.

12:27

Limited only by time and my clumsy fingers, slower than thought.

Oops, hit the back button, thanks for the save.

11:00

Fifteen minutes of fame. Fifteen minutes to flame.

Burn bright, think deep, reach out and touch.

10:17

This spark, so tiny, I need to feed it so it can grow.

Twigs of inspiration, pine needles smoking, obscuring.

8:48

Where did the time go? Where did my brain go?

Ok, one moment, there's rice in the chicken section on my kid's plate.

7:12

Disaster averted. Back to the fire.

Words burn through the fog.

6:03

My mom once said I burned the candle at both ends

and in the middle.

5:06

This is how it always is for my brain.

Procrastination and then sudden generation.

4:11

I often worry, what if the words stop coming.

What if my fingers ever catch up to my thoughts.

3:43

Will the stories cease? Doused by indecision.

Will the flames show my vision?

3:02

But this is the only way my brain has ever worked.

I wish instead I could march steadily.

2:24

Walk to the exit instead of run

Or stop drop and smell the roses.

2:00

But no, genesis only comes from chaos

words appear like supernovas from the subzero of space.

0:30

Is the the same for you?

Spontaneous Combustion.

0:09

Plus 9 seconds to edit.

Dark room, all alone

thoughts of the day unravel

successes and failures

and all of life's treasures

combine putting the man on trial

in his lonesome desperation

and refusal to correct himself

he sins again in agony

despite the harm he does himself,

and cries.

so many scrambled values igniting in his mind

how many blessings kept from him

because of how he spends his time

and oh that guilt, that shame

that lack of sense of purpose

the coldness of a man who sleeps in shadows

the anger of that man who sees the light

the trials of a man who does not know how

to cultivate a righteous life

but oh, that sun, will come again tomorrow

and the banner of the cause will somehow rise

and the call to arms will beckon him to prosper

and he will choose whether to live among the Wise

who guides him only when he follows

and who does not tarry in correcting

the faults that lie at the bottom of the heart

of a man who tries to decide to fight

daily facing the fear of loss of life

he, who avoids the knowledge of what is right

so often just to keep from moving

out of the shackles of

cold wet darkness

in which he is most comfortable

and he waits for it to happen

as though he must take no part in it

as though he could never accomplish it

as though it were all on his shoulders to bear

and so he waits for it to happen

and does nothing

and he waits for it to happen,

and does nothing.

The light

Quivers

And ignites

A life is made

In the darkness

Of a night.

*

Through

Years of strife

It glows amidst

The cycle

Of persistence -

Magnificently exists.

*

Until,

One day

It falters

In combustion

The light becomes

Unfailingly altered.

*

Alas,

The light surely

Reincarnates,

Rebirth

As it begins anew -

Spontaneous fate.

I wondered if I could generate heat by merely thinking. Thinking harmful, vengeful, and thermogenic thoughts? Could I put something malevolent into an earworm whose cycling 'round and 'round could accrue heat recursively? What exact thoughts could do that?

Then they dawned on me. Those thoughts. Those sentiments that aligned the synapses just so, building upon themselves, inching up the temperature just atop my skin.

Mercury's rising.

It takes more than adrenaline. More than cortisol. It is something a whole new undiscovered gland secretes into the maelström of my turbulent, bilious blood. The choleric rubor, tumor, calor, and dolor coming. A new hormone, anentropine, secreted by the Conflagrineal Gland, the remnant of the thymus and lost to ontogeny.

But I found it. You find things when you need to, dontcha?

I am menacing at the very least. Sauntering into the crowd of my polar opposites. Folks who don't think like me. Don't vote like me. Don't pundit like me. The ones who wreck my country, my world, and my life. Aha! That's the key. Find your polar opposites.

Let the anentropine stir, but when you approach the opposite charge accumulation of the hideous mob-blob, you can feel it boil. You fuel the rise in heat by imagining the broil.

It's what makes a mob groupthink effervesce outside the constraints of the convolutions of our brains. It's what tables all rational thought in lieu of our primitive limbics.

Is it hot in here, or is it me?

I watch the crowd. The members of this suspect clique fanning their faces. Taking off their shirts. But it's freezing out here. I enjoy the paradoxical undressing of these poor, stupid bastards.

Is it really hot in here?

Yes, indeed, it is me. I can smell the singe on my arm hairs. I move into the thick of the crowd. I'll be going up soon, and considering my surroundings, I want to take as many with me as I can.

And oh, it took way less than 1400º. Just a little chemistry. And the right kindling.

There's this amped up arousal that ignites this fire inside of you.

It consumes you to the point where you're convulsing.

Your entire body feels like it's about to come undone but you want more of it, you beg for it.

You ride this high that surges through you.

You grasp and cling to anything that will keep you from floating away.

It's as if a thousand tremors vibrate through you.

It's unbearable at times, wanting it to give you a moment of reprieve but it continues to assault you.

It buries itself deep in your core waiting for you to give into it, to give into its control.

You have no choice but to let go.

Your voice unrecognizable as your body shakes from the euphoric pleasure, building up until you spontaneous combust.