I awoke from a dream of red orange yellow leaves into a screaming chaos of which I could make no order. The yells of my mother and father, obscured by walls of smoke designed by an architect unconcerned with clarity or function, reached me through my blanket still half over my head. Fire. Fire was my home.

standing between tall coconut trees grow thick in the median strip of the short street all trees lean away from the ocean where the strong trade winds bring comfort in the heat that binds me to chairs or beds running parallel to the street I can barely see the house collapsing into itself piling smoldering ash folding compactly eyes red swollen from smoke black red heat ash I can smell it though tangy wood swollen bulging with what was left behind all black crumbs now equal in absence I wrapped in my blanket next to my sister

Tonight the sky was dark blue only lit by the orange street lamp that used to shine through open window. Awake I lie in my bed feeling grooves in the wall the vertical gaps between slats of wood. The air is warm and dry. The driveway was charred in streaks, the blackness our chalk could never approach, the black of newly paved asphalt, of tar. The grass rectangle lot was pushed in by fences from three sides exploiting the burnt emptiness. I felt it there tonight, I felt the ghost of a house, the spectral structure: walls, roof, wood floor, all there in the moonlight. I heard the door to the mud room, with panes of glass that were perpetually beaded with perfect drops of rain, squeak as we went in to tie our shoes sitting on the low step down, sitting on the wooden bench with the black legs, sitting on the kitchen table chairs, standing slipping the shoes on late for school. I heard that door coming home late, the green lamp my father would leave on in the living room as he went to sleep. I heard it, as I ran out of the house for the last time behind my sister waiting for the familiar sound of the lock slipping into place, knowing the door would stand open and unmoving, waiting. I almost expected to hear the whine and slam of the trade winds closing the door as I stood under the street lamp here tonight. But there was only moonlight, black and grass.

The window would have been right there, I trace the rectangle with a stretched pointer finger. Headlights of cars driving around the block at midnight shine on the walls, sweeping the space where the wall and the ceiling meet a soft band of white light among shadows, as I struggle to stay awake. The storm and the wind blow the rain drops horizontal, my grey blinds lift, billowing like a dancing dress, towards the center of the room. Hesitate reaching for each other, estranged partners, then rushing with a whoosh back towards the windows exhaling the lung bursting breath. This banging and crashing and creaking of the screens and glass excited me as I lay curled on the bed enjoying the grey ghosting of the storm.

Before I go to sleep I use my doorstop to prop open my bedroom door just enough so my cat can squeeze in and out. Through this crack comes light, a skinny long rectangle that touches, briefly, my rug and all the corners of my books scattered on the floor. And noise. Noise wanders in seemingly flowing, bobbing, over a shallow brook that runs though my house, and muffled underwater by darkness and dreams. The soft buzz of my father watching television or talking on the phone, my mother's mumblings as she sits at the kitchen table one leg up chewing on the cap of a black pen consumed by a crossword puzzle. Sometimes before the headlights dance through my room I hear voices. Loud red clear, not from the television or phone. I wait for the headlights, burrowing deeper beneath my blanket and dream about closing my door.

in the fire many things burned maybe tears could have done more than yellow screaming of sirens and water rushing through hoses urgent insistent endless I did not cry my mother and sister did standing homeless watching formless flames accentuating edges lines of the house illuminating corners cobwebbed with dusty shadows forgotten I stared and did not blink or breathe or let go of my sister's hand until her tiny palm and wrist blued with a large bruise that was not a burn she did not scream or yell or hit me as I gripped her hand only cried softly in a maelstrom of loud color anchored to me and to her tears almost on the other side of this world I watched over the small island over the deep tremendous deep salty pacific squinting and yes I could just see the red or orange speck shimmering and burning a comet over the dark night water

This window two white wood sliding panes used to get stuck in their tracks it would rain heavily wood swelling with moisture from the rain falling looked over the front lawn the street the coconut median the street and the neighbor's house across the street. Scotty lives in that house where the television is always on even when I drive past at three in the morning the living room is illuminated in bright blues fading to purple. The back of his house is on the bank of a brown silty brackish canal that runs from a thick marsh down to the ocean. A man being chased by the police jumped off of the bridge that spans the canal and drowned. My brother made me jump off the bridge with him my arms spinning in tight circles my toes pointed toward the dirty water we splashed. He made my sister swear never to tell my parents. Under the bridge is a colorful mess of graffiti and duck shit. It smells strongly of urine, the duck shit, and sometimes marijuana. One new years eve Scotty, Kainoa and I threw fireworks into the canal from Scotty's back yard lighting the fuse watching it sparkle in our hand waiting to throw the explosive in a high arc end with colored sparks flames in the dark water fizzle and bubbling cauldron. There was a bike in the canal in the shallow part underneath the bridge. Crabs beneath silt-covered frame one end of the handle bars wedged the mud between rocks the other straight up almost breaking the surface low tide asking, pleading child reach out into the water. That window could barely see the bank of the canal through the trees down a narrow path along the side of Scotty's house but when it rained and the windows swollen shut I could hear relentless drops hitting the canal pocking it with millions of imperfections.

In the breaking glass I hear water running falling dripping. I hear showers through the house on fire muffled through closed doors and down the hall. Glass shower doors collecting water beads and a thin layer of steam, my journal that would fade and be washed away as the cool trade winds blew through the doors and windows as I toweled dry. In the shower for hours writing everything that I couldn't. Across up down the two tall sliding doors, everything in water and steam with a wet finger wrinkled saturated pressed dragged over glass. This fire is washing me clean.

In my room in the dark there are many shadows cast over themselves and corners hidden in flat or curvilinear surfaces. In my room in the dark I can tell you what drawers hide pens papers shirts rulers tape paint matches underwear secrets. In the drawer secrets there is only paper and ink fades leaving the nib and soaks into the thin recycled paper the drawer is shut and cannot be opened but in shadows inside my dark room. It is not for the house or for my son or for myself or for you or her or my dad or my brother it is because I cannot hear or see or speak, because I am. In my room in the dark think about burning the papers the drawer over my metal trash can one at a time holding each watching the flames lazily curl ink letter word sentence maybe then with charcoal hands and singed finger tips speak.

In the shouting and cackling of the fire I left everything behind. Through door hall dining room for the first time still dreaming hoping that warm soot ash worn so soft was blanket clutched pulled tangled legs arms feet fingers my brother's first, then mine. Blue red green squares and triangles simple geometric houses pitched roofs square windows iterated over blanket. Corners matching corners hanging off sides of the bed never touching the floor. In the warm night and the tall flames chasing the swinging branches of the tall coconut tree that sways heavily from side to side as brown elephant men from Samoa shimmy up the thin lithe trunk an old waving metronome I was sweating but wrapped in the blanket tight moth or leathery bat wings around me knowing it would stay on my sheets and not slip from my shaking body.

over through beneath the fire roaring and the house falling over itself the cracking and shattering of glass glass windows sliding doors shower doors that I broke on a warm night early in the evening greenish glass in the speckled steel frame door broke taking an hour to fall stand holding the handle curved in a tight double arc naked feel loud cascade of glass shards on tile bouncing breaking crunching clattering decomposing the door liquid glass then quietly the glass everywhere magnifying soft red tiles underwater and blood on feet and reflecting back at me the crash between the hot flames dripping ceiling sprawling wall the calm glass shatters forever

the house is gone a hole left from land and my sleeping clutching hands that twitch in dreaming are dirty with chalky memories deep and smoking as ashes falling black choking flakes a torrent hot burning storm of taking calm façade evoking Christmas or cold snowy nights in front of a hearth warm dream of fall colors richer in drifting sleep the slow falling leaves fading as they near the ground the lack of substance a vacuum into space and time even memory fades like upholstery in sunlight the couch is not as blue a deconstruction of the familiar smells squeaks feelings scatter no walls and roof to hold them walls no longer enclose the family of mother father sister son stretched to vague tangents lightly penciled vectors long originating from behind the warm pleasant night under the wind trained trees clutching each other knowing the pull of boundless space knowing the thin graphite lines traced with a metal straight edge dissect the horizon