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It has come to my realization that life offers no absolutes. We are not guaranteed a large house or lots of money. We are not guaranteed any sort of happily ever after. We are not even guaranteed a tomorrow. Every second that we are living is a constant gamble of possibilities, whether they be good or bad.

There are some people in this world who are born under impossible fortune and luck. They stride through life with ease, with opportunities thrown at them from every direction. They live an almost unrealistic lifestyle that is forever envied by the rest of the world. In a battle to death, these are the people that always come out on top, some way or another.

Then there are the others--the rest of the world--who, for some unknown reason, have to fight for even a glimpse at the lives of the people above them. They can give it their all, but it still won’t be enough. It never is.

However, I have learned that, no matter what end of the spectrum you were born on, humans will always strive for something better. It is common knowledge that we are a species driven by greed, and it is with that drive that we will never stop wanting more. We want the absolutes. We need them. We yearn for those sacred moments; moments of happiness, triumph, love.

Ultimately, we’re going to be disappointed. That is another thing I have learned, despite the type of person you may be. Everyone has their own absolutes that they must chase. More often than not, they’re presented to you in a way you would have never even considered before, but once you get a taste of that sweet perfection--the absolution--you will be sentenced to a forever of searching, until your heart’s desires can finally be fulfilled. And most of the time, that fulfillment is never reached.
Why? Because we are human. We make wrong decisions. We can never have it the easy way.
For some stupid, pathetic, goddamn reason, it can just never be easy.



When I was born, my mother was afraid me.

I came into this world in an air of cowardice and fear. You see, I have a sister; she is two years senior to myself. During her birth, the doctor’s discovered that her umbilical cord had wrapped itself around her little infantile neck. Thus, they induced an emergency c-section.
Fast forward two exactly two years and four days later. I was a perfectly normal child--the doctors found absolutely nothing to be concerned about. My mother, however, was very concerned. She was afraid, to be more precise. Afraid of birth.

She had never gone through the natural birth process before. She had no way of knowing just how severe the pain would be. She was afraid of the little baby boy that would come crawling out of the depths of her body in a bloody and screaming mess.
It was out of that fear that she requested her second c-section. There was no reason for me to be a c-section baby; it was simply the fear of the unknown.
I feel like that says a lot about me. My own mother was afraid of me. What does that mean, exactly? I couldn't say, but I do know that it means something.
I’m sure at this point you’re probably thinking ‘She wasn't afraid of you. It’s very common for women who have c-sections in the past to never experience natural birth.’
But you’re wrong. I am one million percent certain that the woman who brought me into this world was and always will be afraid of me.
I was conceived as a flame.

In her womb, I was a tiny, minuscule flame. She could feel the heat and intensity all in her body.

She could feel fire.

She could feel me.

In the span of nine months, the flame that was myself kindled very gently. It grew at a steady pace, almost too perfectly.

The heat, however, was intense. Much too intense for my mother. The way I warmed her insides was suffocating; the the feverous waves of fire smothered her, yet she could never find escape. Abortion? Of course not. That was evil. What would the church say?

It was as if her uterus had been composed of butterflies. She was nervous; I made her nervous. What in the world was this being inside her? Surely it could not be her son. She could not create fire.
Yet there I was. And there I would stay. Forever she would be my mother, until the day she died or until my own death. Whichever came first.

The incalescence was always just under breaking point. Within the pregnant twenty-five year old woman was a feeling that would only ever be below par. Inches away. Away from what, exactly? She wasn't sure. But it was intense and violent. Much too powerful for her to handle, she thought, even though the guilt tried to convince her otherwise.

But it was on July 17th, 1998 that she finally became aware. As she was lying on the hospital bed, awaiting the fated blade that would eternally change her existence, it dawned her.

He is fire.

The fear of what had known for months now suddenly became much greater. For, if he were--if I were--already a fierce flame in utero, what would I become the moment the scalpel cut open the fleshy barrier that contained me from the real world?

When fire touches oxygen, what does it become?

An explosion.

The mother instinctively wanted to kicked her legs at the doctors. They couldn't get me out. They just couldn't. The anesthesia had made her lose all feeling below the waist, however, and movement was impossible.

Her mouth opened to try and protest, but a nurse gently shushed her. “There’s no need to be afraid, dear. Everything is going to be alright.”

Everything?

Everything.

It was a promise delivered only out of consolidation. Nothing was alright. Nothing at all.
The moment of change struck her swollen stomach with immense pain. No, that’s not right, she was thinking. I've done this before, there should be no pain. Yet there it was; dulled by a thin layer of drugs that served merely as a torn umbrella in a monsoon.

She screamed. Her throat opened wide, and her vocal cords stretched and tore.
Was it out of pain she was screaming, or was it fear?

Her eyes closed tight in pain, she shrouded herself in her personal darkness, not wanting to see the moment that would forever change her. The fire that would burn her.

Stop. Please for the love of God just stop! Do you not understand?! He is going to kill me! He is going to end all of us! We will be nothing more than a pile of bones if you do not STOP!

In that moment the mother could literally feel her abdomen split. All of her nerves seemed to be centered around the now two separate pieces of skin, with a numbing emptiness in the center.
That is where I was. That is where the gates of hell themselves began to open. That is where the flames poured out.

Eyes still closed, she braced herself for the oncoming doom, for the fiery torture that would be her end.

"There he is."

Those three words pulled her back from the caverns of her mind.

She was alive. She was whole. She was safe.
Right?

Gently, her eyes opened. Readjusting to the horribly bright fluorescents, the young woman realized everything was perfectly okay, just as the nurse had said
.
In the distance, she could see the doctors handling the flame. As she studied them though, she came to see that it was not a flame. It was a he, and he was crying. Her son was crying.

Relief was the first thing that washed over her. Her son. Her healthy, crying, normal son was just feet away from her. She wanted to see him now. She yearned to hold him, touch him, and love him.
When the doctors finally dispersed, and they started to walk towards her, her heart sank again. She could see him. There he was. Her son.

No. Not her son. No. No. No.

This was wrong. It was all wrong. That was the fire. That tiny, crying, red skinned being was the fire.
“Do you want to hold him?”

It wasn't a question. The nurse had already placed me in her arms before she could say no.
As soon as my eight pound self touched her skin, the mother knew that she did not survive. The fire killed her, and she was dead.

What she had done wrong, she did not know, but she was now painfully aware of the personal hell that lay screaming in her grasp.

Maybe it wasn't death. Maybe this was just God being cruel and cursing her.
If that was the case, she would have welcomed the death with open arms.
There was the fire. There was me.

There was the being that was far too intense for anyone; he was much too intense for this world, even. He was destruction.

And with every fiber of her being, with every muscle that was now stitched together, with every beat of her pounding, exhausted heart, she hated him.

She hated him.
She hated him.
She hated me.