Growing Up Orange

It can be about putting out fires, about starting them. It can be about
ignoring them. It can be about pumpkin-picking. About picking
pumpkins instead of putting out fires. It can be about that being your
house, your pumpkin stand too, that’s even better. How the pumpkins
are the same color as the flames engulfing your house. It can be about
taking a picture of the burning house even though it’s yours. Maybe
it’s how long you stood there until you decided to take the picture. It
can be about how you live on the steepest hill in your town. About
how you stood in the middle of the road rolling each pumpkin down
the block. The whole town coming out to run alongside them as they
go. How they can’t keep up. How warm it is there next to the fire, the
whole block warmer. It can be about how your brother wanted to be a
fireman once and how you’d never want him to be the one saving your
house. A house filled entirely with pumpkins. It can be about your
just-picked pumpkins now burning, with the rest of your life. Your
fucking house. It can be what pumpkins smell like when they burn. It
can be that house burning, but cooking, somehow, every pumpkin
inside. About how good those pumpkins will taste. About eating every
last one of them.

— 2011