Fire. That's what happened that day. Just a tiny sparkler, nothing too fancy, no evident danger. Yet, the day they came into my life became engraved in my memory, a fire never to go extinguished, but that was meant to grow instead and get out of control at times while being still so perfect and beautiful and bright. My own fire. I could not help, but to love them.

The first one was a cannonball. Roaring into my arms and taking up things. Unstoppable. My will to live and my failed dreams embracing her alike, for one thing about cannoballs, is that they're loud and they wreck. They change the landscape and they make good teachers. All beauty and colors, all suphur and death and new life. My cannon ball, she's truly the love of my life, because ever since she was born, loving her has been the work of my life.

The second one, came in a dark, quiet evening. So unwilling, my M-80 ready to blow like a ticking bomb. He used to love to sleep. The dormant gunpower I didn't mind keeping in my bed. I didn't mind. Now he's a firecracker, spining around, bursting in colors, alive and awake. He's no longer asleep. And I enjoy the buzz, I'd embrace him curling upwards in endless sparkles, making me dizzy and awed and scared all at once, then making a nasty bang, like a gun going off.

The gun I love. The cannon ball I love.

The fireworks that I would never want any other way, which no ordinary flashlight could ever be. 

No flashlights for me.

But now, my fireworks are gone. I guess that's the price for being that special. 

And I miss them. I miss their fire and their beauty, the precise balance required just to keep it safe.

Just to enjoy their grandiose light flashing amidst the dark.