There was a young boy who developed
a love for Independence Day.
It doubled as his birthday.
His family would sit on the porch,
sing to him as they lit the cake,
then watch the fireworks.
Those nights were near perfect.
And when the fireflies came,
they were perfect. They buzzed
and glowed around the boy
as he frolicked after them in circles.
He loved them more than anything,
resolving to keep them so he could love them always.
He’d wait for them
to surround the leftover cake
and swoop them up
with white ceramic mugs,
capping the lids and
trapping them in the darkness,
hoping they would forget
about the world they’d been taken from.
He was so happy, because even as they thrashed in misery,
beating their lights dim into the sides of merciless ceramic,
they were his.
Decades later, he is the same,
mugs in the trash overflow with firefly corpses.
except the fireflies know better now
than to wish him a happy birthday.