(For those who touch what burns them anyway)

I saw the matchstick trembling

between your teeth

before you ever spoke.

That embered grin,

half threat, half prayer,

like smoke curling from a chapel door

still whispering with flame.

You were ruin wrapped in velvet,

a lit fuse in a silk dress.

And I:

I was dry wood in winter,

all longing, no caution.

I didn’t fall for you.

I offered myself willingly.

You warned me:

"This doesn’t end kindly."

But your breath was the wind

and I was already flickering.

I came closer.

I came undone.

We danced in a ring of cinders,

lips pressed to the brink of ignition,

palms open to the scorch.

You tasted like danger and memory.

You kissed like prophecy.

And I let the flame write its name

on every soft part of me.

Because some of us

were born not to be held,

but to be consumed.

To seek the ache of heat

over the safety of stillness,

to crave the holy violence

of being known,

even if it chars us.

And yes, I burned.

But in the ashes,

didn’t I shimmer?

Didn’t I blaze

like something that finally

understood itself?

Didn’t I,

for a moment,

become

fire too?