Moth to a flame

He had a strange thing for fire.
I was a mild pyrophobic.
It wasn’t meant to be easy for us… but for some strange reason,
we held on.
I never knew what he saw in a heap of burning leaves or why he would never blow out a match after lighting a smoke.
He would wait for the flame to leave the red imprint on his finger. I don’t even know why I didn’t blow it out first. Instead, I would stare at him with awe and he would brush my cheek and smile at me.
He looked beautiful when he did that.
His poetry was always about burning candles and vintage fire-places; about forests turning to ashes and sun swallowing up the earth.
His words were like a curtain between us and he was not ready to remove it. So, I let it be.

We clung on to a relationship that needed much work.
I was scared of getting too close to anything related to fire
and he couldn’t resist it.
But things worked out…
I learnt to sit through a candle-light dinner without being paranoid. He learnt to walk past a tiny road-side fire, without staring at it intently.

Six months together, I didn’t know if I was in love. But I knew I got used to him.
I got used to his burnt fingertips slithering on my skin.
I got used to him holding my hand in an absolutely unique way. A gentle warmth would pass through my fingers, which would be followed by a strong hand holding on tight with a promise of not letting go.
He became a habit.
Yet I knew we were supposed to end in destruction. Either I would perish in his flame or he would be extinguished in my fear.

And just when I thought I could survive fire from a little up close…
I had to watch him burn.

He had killed himself on a winter evening.
On the eve of my birthday.
But I don’t think he remembered that.

No!! Don’t think he hung himself or threw himself from a building.
He was creative and poetic… as was expected of his nature.
“He drenched himself with kerosene and set himself on fire with a match.”, that’s what the police said.

But I know what it actually was.
He had stared at the matchstick till the last second.
Only this time he let it leave a more permanent damage.

There was this strange feeling as I watched him burn.
The last time I saw his face on that hospital bed, he had a soft smile pasted on his face.
A smile i had witnessed only a few times. A smile of true happiness and peace.
It felt like he was unified with something that he truly loved.
Like he had finally found respite from this cruel world of injury.

He never explained his poems of wildfire and flames to me.
He never explained what he found in those burning bits of leaves.
He never explained why he saw fire more like a person than any living human being.
He never explained why fire- of all things- attracted his whole being.
And now… I guess, I’ll never know.

“Moth to a flame” found a new meaning for me.
For us.
The moth is never destined to be one with a flame.
For him, I was the moth.

Strangely, he was a moth himself.
And he allowed himself to be devoured.