All That Consumes Us

by Erica Waters

You claw your way up to places where others have been lifted.

“There is this spark in you, a spark that the world would callously stamp out without realizing what it had lost. But we want to fan that spark into flames, into a wildfire. We want to watch you burn.”

Do not choose a life for yourself like lukewarm tea.”

I wish I had nice, dependable, ordinary parents I could be proud of, whose lives were something to emulate rather than something to escape from.

Life has taught me again and again that I’m on my own, that no one is going to take care of me.

She spent her entire life trying to be worthy of the family that rejected her, trying to prove they were wrong not to love her. She spent her afterlife on it too.

But me? I’m going to spend every moment I have creating a life that’s worthy of me.