Sunscreen

You’ve covered my pale skin in a coating of bubble wrap, a blanket of protection, a skin of sunscreen. The summer sun once left me reddened, the freckles that dot my shoulders, cheeks and nose, were the fuel to the fire that quickly spread across my skin, arm hair like tiny trees that quickly singed. But now I’m left with heat pressing near but never truly touching, like a child who’s gone to the river: my shoes and socks left on a warm rock, pants rolled up high, sand and dirt already stuck to bare feet, and just as I’m about to dip my toe into the current, my mother shouts from the parked car behind me, ruining the excitement and thrill of the almost touched cold. It’s strange, being fire retardant, the feeling of getting thrown among the flames but never being burnt. Of feeling the heat all around, wrapping me and embracing and even going as far as to caress, but never feeling the fireworks that shoot from your skin. You would think that cells packed full of gunpowder would be enough to ignite my long burnt out hearth, but with sunscreen coating my bricks and kindling, nothing but soot and ashes cover my body.