Slow Burn
Life burns at both ends, wild like a fire on a forgotten beach. You were the ash that fell silent, leaving me to sweep up the mess. You left, and I wandered through the wreckage, picking up old matches and memories, clinging to the sting because it was all that was left. My bones, brittle and dry, cracked under the weight of loving you, hollowed out by the fire we fed, each crackle another thief stealing what little was left of me. I drowned in the smoke, choked on the words I never said, each breath a reminder that the fire was real, that I was the one who fed the flames. But pain is a familiar friend, and I learned, bit by bit, how to stop searching for you in the ashes, how to let the wind take them wherever it pleased. Now, I walk these empty streets, changed but not broken, finding echoes of myself in the silence, in the shattered glass, in the way the night still falls even after the madness. The door’s there, still ajar on its rusty hinges. I walk by it often, knowing one day I’ll pass through it again, slowly, like a man tempting fate, striking a match not to rekindle the past, but to light a new path, hoping it leads me to somewhere I can call home.