Why should the fire die?  To me it seems an honest, a legitimate question (ignoring through whispers of wine, the secret, conscious-un understanding) if there is one.  They say in science textbooks and so many metaphors that matter is not destroyed.

                But what does matter matter?

                I want heat!  Dammit, I want flame, reaching up to lick the untouched air, not allowing for even a particle of oxygen to go jealously unused.  All this solid stuff, it doesn’t feel as good, I can’t absorb it when it’s not warm or scalding or at least it hasn’t been shaped over the glittering cracks of boiling carbon.

                I am lying I am lying I am lying because I love the cool equally, diplomatically.  Water in summer, down throat or across skin, carefully sliding.  Tugging breeze, rustling relief.  Sweat as function.

                Warmth is unremarkable without its spectral spectrum opposite.  But cool is a flat plain, the words mountain and valley not even foreign but uninvented.  I want to walk all over all of this.  I want the soles of my feet to feel every elevation, even the ones in the middle.

                Since there are so many, I get bored of talk of things that last forever.  I should not be concerned, nor should you, as neither of us will last that long.  God, love only until death is so drab and grey, like being told you will only eat macaroni and cheese for the rest of your life.  Of course it’s delicious, but your mouth will start to produce saliva thicker and pastier than before.  You will get soft and you will droop and your feet will fight you to stay glued petulantly to the floor.

                But what I’m saying is, why do we have to choose hot or cold, sudden end or the hopeful haunting doom of forever?

                No, no, I’m getting confused.  What I mean is, why does the choice we make choose to affect nothing?  The weatherman waves his shiny teeth helplessly, telling us to stuff our bags with wool socks and sunscreen.  We can even sit ourselves right next to that soup pot boiling, choosing stove setting and stirring like attentive food mothers, following the recipe toward the proper and perfect temperature.  But we will always pull out the candy thermometer too early or too late.  And either way, that damn liquid will get a little hotter, and then it’ll cool down when it feels like it.

                So why should the fire die?  And also, why won’t it?