A euphoric sense of self came from losing you.
I stand in the room, facing you. We both came here willingly, but what came next will never be recounted in the same light by either of us.
How I see it? You painted these walls with kerosene. The clear liquid dripped on all four walls surrounds us here, you and me, alone. We talk for a bit, but these days, our conversations end in some sort of disagreement that furthers the rift between us. Amidst the yelling, we find ourselves falling into old habits that should have died with the rejoicing of our reciprocal “I love yous” from the last time it got this heated. But alas, we fail to see eye to eye again.
For a moment, however, we do lock eyes, only this time, it isn’t to apologize and wait for the next impending argument. This time, we stand before one another, but the glimmer of hope I used to see in you vanishes. That’s when I knew this needed to end. I held up my lighter, and in only a few short seconds, I dropped it.
The roar of what came next is one that will leave scars. Flames fill the room, swallowing what we once had been, what we became, and what would have proceeded with us all in one moment. Any sense of tending to the few good pieces that were left of us was torched in the blaze of the inferno. The little patience I had left for us together went up in smoke. Only embers of us remain.
You’ll say my quick and ill-intended spark lit the fire of the end.
And I’ll reject your ignorance, holding on to hope that it was your kerosene-painted walls that did us in.
