“Letter for my Pyromanic Wife” (2024)
This is a story I wrote when I was recovering from gender affirmative surgery and as such wasn’t allowed to carry my computer. I sat in my studio at the art academy and wrote on my grandfather’s typewriter, and I was very alone and very very happy.
(Four months later, I met my pyromaniac.)
My terrible, little pyromanic wife …
The house burned until dawn.
I called 911, and they couldn’t stop laughing,
when they realized I was surprised.
At first, I thought, what about the twine chairs? The encyclopedia?
And what about the chickens I wouldn’t let you name?
You wanted to name them silly names, and I thought they deserved real names,
and now Nora and Molly and Miss Andrea are dead from the smoke.
But I brought you here. I thought you could spend your nights running through the hills, howling at the purple sky, ready to shed blood and spill flesh, and you’d come home to your sleepless husband and lie trembling in my arms, not understanding a word. And I’d smell the smoke in your hair.
But I have spent a decade searching for cause and correlation through theory and thought, and the truth is that, baby, you’ve burnt our house to the ground. One day, this will be the funniest disaster imaginable.
So, my dear, lovely, little pyromaniac, here’s what I suggest: we spend the next decade replacing all the stuff we just lost. We’ll get new twine chairs and more chickens, and just as I’ve convinced myself that my attention and affection has done the trick, that I’ve cured you, then I think you should burn it all to the ground again.
Set fire to all our crap and let’s start over. I promise that, at some point, I’ll laugh. Because I married a fire, and I still get so startled when I burn my fingers.
This time, though, you have to name the chickens. That way, you’ll feel it too.