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.