The Arsonist She Mistook for Shelter

TOTGA: The Flickering Flame He Left

He called it love.
But love isn't supposed to burn just to feel warm.
He only held her when her gaze wasn't locked on his,
Only cherished her when she asked for nothing
Yet gave him everything.

Affection tangled in ego.
Promises that vanished like smoke.
She mistook the glow for safety
Not knowing it was a warning.

This is the story of a girl who danced in the fire,
Thinking it would keep her from the cold.
But the blaze wasn't love.
It was the lesson.

From the ashes, she did not crumble
She bloomed.
No longer soft for boys who loved her only in silence,
No longer shrinking herself to fit his shadows.

She wasn't missing.
She was just giving her light to the wrong guy.

The idea of him is fading.
The dream is gone, the smoke has cleared
And in its place stands a girl who finally remembers:

She was the sun all along.
And this time,
she didn't cry.
Even her tears didn't bother to show up
as if they, too, had learned
there's no point grieving what was never real.

No more apologies dressed in excuses.
No more hidden emotions wrapped in silence.
He was never truthful when it counted,
so why should anything he says now matter?

She stopped rereading the past,
stopped breaking herself down
just to be easier to love.
She's done with almosts, with what-ifs,
with love that only shows up
when it's convenient.

She chooses peace over patterns.
Healing over history.
Her own damn self over the idea of "us."

Because once a woman rises from her own wreckage,
she never returns to the fire that burned her.

So no, she won't settle.
Not for maybes. Not for half-effort. Not for silence that pretends to be love.
She wants a love that shows up with both hands open.

But until then?

She's not waiting.
She's glowing.
She's becoming everything she once begged someone else to notice.

And the next time love knocks?

It'll have to speak her language:
honesty, effort, and a love that doesn't flinch.

✨