I throw matches at bridges
just to watch them burn,
watch the flames lick the sky
and pretend the smoke doesn’t choke me.

It’s safer this way—
or so I tell myself.
I say I don’t need anyone,
I say it so many times,
it almost feels true.

But at night,
the silence creeps in,
curling around my ribs,
pressing against my lungs
until every breath is a battle.
I scroll through old messages,
draft apologies I’ll never send.
I wonder if they still think of me,
if they ever tried to understand
why I push until there’s no one
left to pull me back.

I stare at my own reflection
like it holds an answer
I’ve been running from.
I tell myself I don’t care.
I tell myself I’d do it all again.
But the echoes in this empty room
say otherwise.

I want to believe in steady things,
but even my own reflection changes
when I look too long.
Are you here?
Do you love me?
Will you stay?
I ask without asking,
watching for the answer
in the way your hands move,
the way your breath hesitates before a word.

I know I feel too much,
ask too much,
but the silence between us is louder
than anything I could say.
So I fill it.
With words, with fear, with love—
all spilling over,
all too much,
all at once.

And still, I wonder, if it’s enough.

Survival is its own kind of violence.
It taught me to bare my teeth
when love leaned in too close,
to strike first before the blow could land.
What else could I do?
When the world came at me with closed fists,
my heart became a weapon.

I see the fragments now,
of the friendships ruined,
the family that shut me out.
Their voices linger,
‘She’s chaos in the flesh,
a human storm,’
and they aren’t wrong for it.

I know I hurt them,
turned words into blades
and love into collateral damage.
I know the fault lines are mine,
that I burned bridges faster
than they could build lifeboats.

My unresolved pain
started unnecessary battles,
but taking sole accountability feels
a lot like surrendering —
like their wounds matter but mine don’t.

I am exhausted.
Tired of building fortresses
when I want to build a home.
I want to let go of the anger,
but I don’t know where to lay it down.
I want to break the chain without
breaking anymore of myself.

But for once, I want someone to see me—
not as the storm I’ve become,
but as the girl who weathered one.

I lit the match in hopes that
someone would smell the smoke
and run in, barefoot, through the blaze
just to say “I’m here”

Every bridge I’ve ever crossed
now just ash and ember.
I don’t even look back anymore—
I know the glow by heart.

Friendship, love, kindness—
I’ve tested them like brittle glass,
pressed my fears into every crack
until they shattered and I called it proof.

I begged for permanence
by making people prove they’d stay
through the worst of me
before I ever showed the best.
And they left.
Of course they did.
Even angels get tired of hellfire.

It’s ironic, isn’t it?
To fear being unloved so deeply,
you dig your own void and call it safety.
To crave closeness so much,
you keep pushing,
just to see if they’ll reach back.

I’m alone now,
but not surprised.
Loneliness isn’t quiet—
it hums like guilt in my bones,
a reminder that I built my own exile
brick by brick,
from the ruins of people who once tried.

But God, how I wanted someone
to pass the test.
How I wanted to believe
love didn’t leave when it got hard.
How I wanted to believe
I was worth staying for.