Control

Jun 28, 2008 - 03:16 AM PST

In the pre-dawn dark I yank a match from the book and light it in one swift motion. I let it burn for a second, staring into the hypnotizing flame. This used to be enough.

***

They always want to talk about my mother, and the fire. Talking can’t change anything, though. They want to know how I feel, say they want to help. I consider offering them a match and baring my scarred leg. They don’t understand, think I’m getting better, think they stopped me from doing that. If they knew they hadn’t they would, though, so I bite my tongue and tell them what I imagine they want to hear. I say I miss my mom. It’s true. I say I know I’m not responsible for her death. A lie I punish myself for later. They say I’m getting better, I agree because every burn blisters and pops and lets out a little more of the guilt.

***

I shake out the lighted match and dig the hot end into the pad of my big toe. I blink back the wetness from my eyes and push the smoldering piece of cardboard into my burning toe harder, hot tip between thumb and toe. I can feel it burning my finger , pull my hand back letting the match fall. “Shit.” They’ll notice that one.

***

They don’t check me anymore for the small, round blisters I burn into my thigh, they think they stopped it.

***

Late at night in the last stall of the girl’s second floor bathroom she asked me once what I do with the matches. In the pale glow of the almost full moon I pulled down my pajama pants and showed her the places where I’d dug the still-hot end of the matches into my thigh. She inhaled deeply from her cigarette but said nothing. I pulled my pants up and watched its glowing end, thinking.

***

They don’t know the girl down the hall’s boyfriend sneaks her smokes every Thursday and he always brings a fresh book of matches. She doesn’t need ‘em, though, she stole a lighter off one of the attendants.

***

She takes a drag, offers me the last inch of her cigarette, the end still burning. She knows I don’t smoke, I know she knows this. I take it, push down the waistband of pajamas and panties and gritting my teeth press the glowing end into my hip. She watches fascinated as I put it out against my flesh. Our eyes meet as I drop the butt into the toilet. Neither of us says a thing.

***

I light each of the remaining matches, they sear my flesh as I press them into my arm in hurried succession, the last one blistering the tender skin on the inside of my elbow. I’m caught now anyway.

***

She hands me the new book of matches as I climb onto the window sill in the last stall of the girl’s second floor bathroom late one Thursday night, or is it early Friday morning, I guess it doesn’t matter. I flip up the front flap to survey the rows of perfect red tipped matches. She exhales heavily, asks “Why?” There’s a whole story for the question: a fire, a death, an emotion, or just one word that says it all. “Control.”