Savannah Jaye

i’m sitting outside of this house in florida—
this house that i still hesitate to call a home.
and i don’t sit here as often as i wish i would,
i don’t take advantage of the beauty of what’s offered to me.

on this picnic table, where i’m finding myself alone at midnight,
there is a lighter that was purchased for one dollar.
and this stupid lighter just won’t light.

i’ve been sitting out here with a needle trying to figure out the problem.
(there was some wax build-up from a little mishap before my time)
trying to make it give up its ways and set fire to the surrounding candles.

i don’t know why it’s annoying me so much.
i don’t know why it’s so important to me that this thing starts working again.
it’s not even my lighter, not my dollar spent.
it’s 66 degrees outside, and i’m in no need of its heat.
but it makes me so mad, because all i want is this one thing.
yet it’s refusing, holding out from doing the job it was created to do.

and now, after an hour of fidgeting, the most i can make it do
is to create a tiny flicker that quickly gives up.
so one out of ever five flicks i give the trigger causes that spark:
taunting me and providing me with a false sense of hope,

only for it to just go out once more on me.
but it is, of course, too late;
my hope has been renewed and i begin the process again.

fixing and fixing and fixing and fighting and flickering,
and getting increasing more frustrated and forlorn
because i can’t ever make it do what i want.
because i can’t get it to understand what it needs to do.
or maybe because i can’t understand its true purpose.
somebody paid a dollar for a lighter, what more did i honestly expect?

i want to believe there is still hope for us,
but in all honesty, i probably just need to buy a new lighter.
why is it always so hard for me to just give up and let go?