the fires are here

Dizzy's burned down, the restaurant round the corner from my mum's house.

it used to be called Dizzy's. the two things i remember about Dizzy's are:

• a painting of a white witch tugging on a horse's tail, green and gold and swirling,
• one time i had dinner with my uncle there

my mum's brother is pale because he's got my grannie's irish genes, i mean, we all have the irish genes, but the special red-head irish genes come from grannie. he got my grannie's colouring and my grampie's ill health. gut problems. and now mum's told me he's got cancer.

and i don't know how i' supposed to feel about it because i don't see him very much,

but at the same time i feel something deep down, like a movement in black water,

i worry a little, i wonder what it would be like to lose someone to cancer

i worry just a little bit,

i don't know. it's funny cause the night before Dizzy's burned down a car alarm went off, someone had set a car on fire, just round the corner from my dad's house.

i could see the charred bones of it from my old bedroom window. there were dead wasps on the windowsill -- dad hasn't cleaned my room in ages. it's full of old books and clothes that don't fit anymore.

things are falling apart and some are accelerating

but new things come out

sometimes i think that my fear of death will only be cured by having children

but i don't know if i want them coming into a burning world

there are fires in australia right now

and i don't know what i'm supposed to do about it