Playing With Fire
I'm no stranger to heat, but god knows how much I can't stand it. Everyone who met me knows I'd rather shiver in the cold than have little beads of sweat on my forehead.
But one night, I saw a fire that drew me in. I watched it from afar, but every night that passed I grew close to it.
As it stood at arms length, it had the face of you. And I knew I couldn't resist anymore.
Gone were all thoughts of reason. I've been burnt before, so I've sworn off any contact with the flame. I've lost all hope of finding one that won't burn me. After all, all flames are the same.
But with you, I became a moth willingly marching to what could be my death.
And so I reached out to you, and felt a warmth I didn't think possible. It was welcoming, mellow, and gentle. It's like finally sitting in front of a fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate, after spending all my life in the wilderness of Antartica. Like coming across the apartment of my dreams after believing I'll be spending my nights on the cold pavement of the busy streets of New York. Like waking up in an ancestral house in the Italian countryside, as if I've lived there my whole life.
It was everything I could ever want.
Until it wasn't.
Somewhere down the road, the warmth became scorching. The calm became blazing. The mellow became irritable. And the gentle became a knife swinging every chance it gets.
And the fool that I was held on tighter, chased faster, begged more, prayed harder, until I smoldered. Ignited. Blazed. Burned.
And all that's left are the ashes of my undoing.
After all, when you play with fire, expect to get burnt.
