Stepping in Ember

When I walk it burns. Whenever I take a step it’s as if I’m stepping in steaming ember that hurts me deeply. There is no rest, no refresh. This crazy thing started early. Maybe that’s why I learned to climb before I learned to walk. Because walking already burned a lot, and I didn’t even feel like I was moving. When climbing I would escape reality a little, I would feel freer, with more energy. As if I would finally get away. Even if it was just an illusion, because, in fact, I would stay stagnant. I grew up stepping in flames. I grew up and I never got used to this sensation, on the contrary, the discomfort got greater and greater. As if I was walking on a grill on top of a bonfire, which is constantly fed. And each time bigger pieces of wood are added, the fire grows and I try to run. Once in a while, in an attempt to escape, I fall down, I think about quitting. It seems I will never get out of here, of this place that should nourish me, warm me, but not set me on fire. I crave to feel land, water, relief under the soles of my feet. I crave to feel I fit in, that I’m finally in a place I can be.

To disappear and appear at a different place, hm, doesn’t sound bad. I wouldn’t mind if it was somewhere lost in the middle of nowhere, where I didn’t even speak the native language. I wouldn’t mind walking on cold ground, warm, even hot, as long as it wasn’t this ground that is on fire underneath me. I don’t care if no one there knows me, what I want is to build and rebuild, change. Get rid of this rough shell I’ve been wearing for so many years and that has nothing to do with who I really am. If I even know who I am, it’s hard to think clearly when your feet are burning. To dream of this place is what sustains me. I imagine, in my reveries, that I would reinvent myself there. I could choose a profession, anyone that was viable and that gave me bread. I wouldn’t be demanding enough to even choose my outfit. I would select a comfortable style and with it I would dress myself from head to toe. I could dye my hair any color, wear glasses or not, talk with a pronounced “r” or dragging the “s”, whatever. I could create a name that didn’t exist before and be gladly called like that. In this completely new place, I would also be completely renewed.

I feel that to be there would be like the relief of breathing. You know when you have shortness of breath? Trying to fill your lungs but, as much as you breathe in, nothing seems to be enough? You feel a weakness, an agony, a light despair. Until you finally take a deep breath, a really deep one, so deep that you can finally fill every corner of every lung and you feel an inexplicable pleasure? As if you had personally hunted, captured, and held life with your own hands? I feel it would be the same feeling. I am closer than ever before, I can feel this time is different. I feel it in the vibration of the air, in the will inside of me, in how I now see my reflection in the mirror. You can wait for me a little longer, I am coming.