If I Could Unmake Fire: A Poetic Reflection on the Matchstick’s Legacy

Unmake the Matchstick

I’d un-invent the matchstick.
Yes, the tiny tyrant, sulfur-tipped dictator
disguised in a sheath of wood,
its promise—a flare, a hunger,
an idea ready to devour the world.

I’d revoke its brittle spine,
its scratchy rebellion against stone,
its spark—the herald of destruction
masquerading as light.

Do you see it?
That first flame leaping in a forest?
The campfire circle,
where shadows murmur ancient tales of combustion.
Do you hear it?
The hiss of friction,
the whisper of trees that know what’s coming.

I, the revisionist,
would snatch the ember from Prometheus,
toss it back to the gods like a curse.
Keep your fire.
Keep your fragile brilliance.
Keep your kindling apocalypse.

Imagine This:

A world without the matchstick’s audacity.
No cigarette break
to mark the hours between office tedium.
No burning candles,
melting prayers into waxen silence.
No bridges to burn—
only rivers, flowing endlessly,
unsinged, unscarred.

How many hearts
would beat longer without a wick to light their endings?
How many forests
would keep their leaves,
their proud, green silence?
Would we call this better?
Would we call this peace?

Yet—
somewhere in my refusal to let it live,
I know I’d miss it.
That cruel, delicate finger of fire,
the hiss of potential in every box,
the matches stacked like soldiers,
waiting for their war.

I’d miss its theater,
its arrogance,
its dance of danger.
I’d miss the darkened room,
where one strike brings revelation,
where we lean into the glow,
faces flickering with the pretense of control.

And maybe—
maybe this is why I’d still unmake it.
Because I can’t trust my love for it.
Because it is too small to hold so much death,
too simple to carry so much grief.

I’d un-invent the matchstick,
its potential for ruin,
its pyromaniac dreams.
I’d leave us in the dark,
fumbling for the old ways,
rubbing stones,
calling fire by its truest name:
a thing we were never meant to tame.

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