It's 3 in the morning and I'm freezing, exhausted but wide awake. I'm at a friend's house, for her birthday, and I keep thinking--keep thinking about the conversation we had earlier, about how scared I was when I said I liked you, and how I love to play with you but when you wouldn't say it back I just felt like screaming.

It's 3 in the morning, and I'm leaning in a chair, watching my friend try to revive our fire to chase away the chill, typing furiously on my phone, because the laptop feels too impersonal and my hands are shaking too hard to write with pen and paper. 

It's 3 in the morning and the fire's caught now, it's building, slow as the dawn, but getting stronger and stronger, and I'm marveling at how there was hardly anything left, barely a few warm embers hidden in the ashes, but just some love and attention brought the flames back, reaching for the sky, blazing with heat. 

It's 3 in the morning and I'm starting to think--starting to hope that maybe, maybe, if we just blow on the embers, there's still hope for us and hope for what we were to each other, that with some kindling to build on we can grow strong and tall and burn together, under the stars, in the summer chill, through thunderstorms and snow. 

It's 3 in the morning and I'm staring into the fire, and words keep running, racing, tilting through my mind, and you're in all of them, you're the reason for them, you put them there, and for the first time in weeks I feel light again, I feel clear again, I feel like I can breathe, and it's because of you, and I don't know why, why you matter so much but you do and I'm scared that if you know how deep that burn goes, how enduring that flame is, you'll run away, to let it die out, or the reality of you will smother it or it'll burn and scare you and suddenly you'll be afraid of me, or you'll be like freezing water thrown on suddenly, all hissing and steam and evaporation, and everything that we were and everything that we felt will just be g o n e.