Writing the Smoke Out

Confession:

Last night, my house betrayed me.
Or maybe time folded in on itself, and I woke up inside the wrong version of my life—one where smoke has teeth and silence has weight.
The walls didn’t scream, but they watched. And I swear the ceiling blinked just before the flames spoke my name.
I’ve always thought disaster would arrive with sirens.
But it came wearing cotton.
A shirt. On a lamp.
A whisper of heat that turned into a war.
This isn’t a metaphor.
This is just what happened.
And I still can’t breathe right.
____________________________________________

Today I was hosting a couchsurfer, she was kind. Polite. We had tea that evening.

But at midnight, she made a mistake.

She left a shirt on top of the old lamp in my bedroom and stepped into the bathroom. I was in the living room, writing, music low in the background, the kind of calm that feels earned. Then I smelled it. Smoke.

I checked the kitchen first, confused. Then the living room.

And then I opened the door to my bedroom—

and the world changed.

Fire was already climbing the furniture. Smoke had swallowed the ceiling. I ran for water. The electricity cut out. I was moving blind, barefoot, carrying pots and buckets in the dark, trying to find the fire through coughing and panic. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe.

But somehow—I got the flames down.

We sat on the balcony afterward, not talking much. Just breathing. The smoke stayed long after the fire was gone. I returned to the room an hour later to mop up the water before it soaked deeper. I finished around 3 a.m., soaked, shaken, and fully awake.

I don’t remember if I ever told you this, but I loved that place. It was my first real home—mine alone. I built it slowly, piece by piece, in my own rhythm. It was the one space where I felt safe. Where I could breathe without bracing.

Now it feels haunted.

Not by ghosts, but by the kind of silence that only comes after something breaks.

The air isn’t peaceful anymore. It’s cautious. Like it’s watching me back. Even the rooms that didn’t burn still smell like smoke—like a warning that hasn’t finished happening.

The repairs are one thing. But what I really lost was a feeling I didn’t know was so fragile: safety. Home. That low, humming sense of “I’m okay here.”

What’s left is something hollowed out.
It feels violated. Compromised.
Like something sacred burned without permission.
And that’s the worst part:
It’s not just damaged.
It’s unfamiliar.
______________________________

Aftermath:

Now, the house doesn’t speak to me the same way.

The walls feel rewritten—like they’ve seen something they can’t unsee.
The bed is gone. The air is quieter, but not calm.
Even the shadows seem unsure where to stand.
And I—I move through the rooms like a visitor wearing my own skin.
I keep waiting for the smell of smoke to leave.
It doesn’t.
It just lingers, like a memory that forgot how to end.
And maybe that’s what this is now—
a life paused mid-breath,
waiting for something to feel like mine again.

Sega