The first time someone asked me if I missed you, I didn’t say yes. I hadn’t been lying, I didn’t miss you. I only longed for parts of you, not the whole thing.

Like, your arm. Not both, just one. The one that fit so perfectly under my neck at night. The one that coiled around my shoulder like a snake, holding me in place.

Your love was less like a hug, and more of a vice. When you held me, it felt soft. Your grip was strong, but it felt as if I could shatter if I tried to break loose.

In the end though, I didn’t shatter. I burst into an urgent flame, the heat from my chest sears off parts of you I had wanted to keep.

We loved like a heat wave; warm, but suffocating.

I hadn’t meant for our love to look like this. We turned in on ourselves like crumpled bits of paper.

There hasn’t been one part of me since, that has reallly wanted to turn around. I knew that last day, I had to leave you behind me. The last time I saw you, I knew I had made the right choice. You had turned yourself into a match head, waiting to strike yourself on a rock, just to burst out in flames like you had done when you ignited me the first time.

But I’ve long since snuffed that fire out of my veins. I am not made of fire anymore, just ashes and charred flesh.

I’ve always enjoyed the smell of gasoline in the air, like a scent to remind me to come back home.

Slowly, I had been cleaning my burned soul, cleansing the tarnished walls that still stood.

It’s been years now, since we held one another. Last night though, I thought about you. About how you had been the first person to light the match in my head, and the last one to notice I was on fire.