Wildfire Everywhere

Friends, family. Even family. :I

A poem I once wrote about a man I loved, in early 2023, back at Smith. Gosh, the surprise, right? How does a girl fall in love with a man while going to a traditionally all-women's college? Sigh.

I really am just running through my unpublished poems and publishing them. There are many that I simply don't like enough to edit properly and finish. But there are some that stand out, despite the test of time. Oh gosh, but dang, I was such a hopeless romantic. An intense-ass romantic. Jesus.

I had no chill pill to take back then. Just, every feeling I felt at 22, felt like fire. Anything new would make me vulnerable, and being the free bean that I was, I let my guard down. 

This poem reminds me what it feels like to just BE intense and be obsessed. It's a reminder of how my youth was such an up and such a down. How silly and intense I was and how I don't deviate too far from it today, 2 years later. Crazy right? No more craziness, going forward. 

Future Ngoc, if you're reading this poem again, no more craziness. No more letting feelings overwhelm. Just be a calm, easy, cheesy bean.

He is no longer mine, but

here is: Wildfire Everywhere

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He caught onto me like wildfire. I burned everywhere.

Even in the middle of a cool night, heat made my toes curl and lips swear

that I can't just be doe-eyed while his fire searched for my blood. 

I lived on a boat alone once, hoping he'd never find me.

But like air, he is everywhere. He knows exactly how to fill our conversations with bubbles. So many bubbles. Is he

another whale swirling around me? 

I could dream up every Taylor Swift song with "golden" in it to remind me of him.

We just met. We're both burning. Every waking hour is an hour I want to touch him.

And his laugh can lull any girl into his calm part of the ocean.

That deep, godly voice. A hunter. Poseidon. Trident beaming. 

My ears yearned to make him laugh again and again, because I swear that's when I drown, somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico. And from his lips, would be a wit that matched mine. A witty remark and he'd make me say "god" with it. Sometimes I'd roll my eyes, sometimes I'd squint just to hear his voice better, maybe see him through the phone separating us.

On him are lips I once wanted. 

On him are eyes I once wished on. 

Features I painted on and painted on until I can't see. 

I can't see the mess in front of me.

The mess of the trees, peoples' homes, their gates and gardens, my only boat sinking,

because it's all wildfire. 

    I can't breathe. 

        Wildfire everywhere and he burns my heart enough

to burn me back into ash soil 

when he's no god

no god of mine.