Nowhere I'd Rather Be To Watch It All Burn Away

   I was laying in a slide from my childhood, looking at the smaller hill north of Mount Diablo. I saw the fires burning, three bright dots straight in a row, like bed bug bites. I didn't want to think about the time we had bed bugs in London. About the time I had bed bugs in London. I didn't want to think about the fires burning so bright I could see them from miles away. I didn't want to think about the boyfriend I had in high school that might have lived near there, or the hilltop we shared. The one that might have been burning.
   I wanted to think about how beautiful the fire was, and how perfect of a night it felt like. Just a little bit warm, a little bit breezy. Perfect weather to burn a drought-spelled hill to cinders.
   I wanted to think about how beautifully the sun had set, lighting up the smoke clouds in rainbow colors spanning half the sky. I wanted it to burn. Because I wanted to stop being me.
   I wanted to hang out with my work guys and be the me that they knew, not the me from college who tutored kids and was in a professional fraternity and cared about everyone more than herself. I wanted to be someone else. One that no one knew, because I had always been the good girl. I had always been the girl to count on, the good listener, the good friend, the girl who wanted to be loved and liked.
    I want to act without thinking, live without planning. I wanted to be Shiva, the Destroyer. I wanted everything to burn, to crumble and die. I wanted to be some other me. Someone who didn't cry at everything. Someone fierce and brave. And reckless. And fearless.
   And as the winds changed, and the fires with them, turning from bed bugs to flea bites, my fury cooled, my drunkenness
wore off and I realized I do not want to be this other me. I just want to be happy.