As the common phrase goes, 'when you're born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire', and that is true. Fire becomes normalcy. The tongues of orange flames felt like hugs before bed and the burned scent of the split ends smelt like home. Singed fingertips became my nail polish and I wore the smoke stains like high-end fashion. Living among the heat and constant lack of oxygen feels like living on the edge: an everlasting rush of adrenaline until it makes you numb to anything new, anything exciting.

Waking, sleeping, waking, sleeping, day and night, pattern after pattern until every day felt like the day before, the new year just like the last, and so on. It feels as if your life is a painting: small and insignificant enough to fit within one small frame with four rigid lines and four sharp corners. Sometimes the painting is bright and vivid and full of life. Other times, the painting could be a bit more subdued, watered down to dull the color but not too much to water down the lines and structure. Or maybe, just maybe if your house is on fire, you confuse fire with water and water down the watercolor painting until all the rigid lines blur, the sharp flicks of paint no longer have shape, and the bright pops of color dissolve into mediocre on the canvas.

Even if climbing into bed, crawling under the thick covers, felt suffocating in a burning house, I still would. Every night. Every night I would open the big bay windows, hoping that some of the smoke would billow out, that the charcoal color would signal for help in the deep endless sky. But it didn't. The sunset revealed the stars on the night canvas all grouped together under the names of constellations. They were constant reminders of how alone I was. But even still, if the stars themselves can find friends from light years away, maybe there is hope.