Fire

I try to be good, I really do. I hardly come out when you don't want me to, and when you do I try to be calm. I serve my purpose and go away, like a genie in a bottle.
I'm, like, there for you, you know?
I like helping you. Sometimes you just want a smoke, but sometimes you let me play with water. There's a fun challenge. It takes a lot to get him excited, but when he is he's just so bubbly. I get that. I get excited too.
Like when there's a big pile of wood you want me to make vanish. I'll try not to get to jittery, just licking the edges and calmly sweeping over it, but it's just so much to try! I have to be everywhere, feeling the rough and smooth, pulling the fibers away, making it into light. I want to hug it and stroke it and devour it, and I throw bits of myself away with joy.
But that's okay. You like when I do that. I see.
And then there's when I get carried away. I always try not too, but when there's so much, I want to help it. I want to make the world warm again, and I want to make things become light. Light is hope, and so I turn things into hope. All the pain falls off as soot, and there's hope.
Sometimes, though, I get too into it. I start dancing too fast, I start caressing the wrong partner, growing to far, taking all the steps at once, pirouetting and sashaying and flipping madly. And I get so into it, and everything's hope and everything's warm.
Then something screams, and I try to stop. I do; I don't want anyone hurt. But the wind's already moving and everything falls into me. I can't pull myself back. there's too much of me. So I go. And I turn everything to light until my light dies.
Then I'm cold. So cold. So very, very cold. I don't know if there will ever be warm again. I wait in the silent dark, so cold, so alone, and so sorry. I didn't want to  hurt anyone. I didn't want to break anything.  I couldn't stop. Please, just try to forgive. I don't need trust, just forgiveness. And you always manage that.
With a strike of a match, I'm back.