Pour the gasoline
Light the match
I’ve got a short fuse,
And you’re a pyromaniac
Adding more fuel to the flames
But what entices us to keep dancing in them,
Is it love or pain?
The blood boils in our veins
We ignite
Burn the day
And torch the night
Scorch to ashes, though, dust to dust, inevitably our fate,
Must we always tempt the blaze, gamble on love to disintegrate
The heat won’t subside,
when there’s passion in both of our eyes
Something keeps pulling us back into this all-consuming fire
Must this be what it feels like to walk through hell and back -
Choking on the smoke, fulfilling arsonists desires
Drench me in kerosene,
extinguish every dream.
because embers glow, but never last
the future fades into the past.
There’s something dangerously beautiful about fire, the way it dances, devours, and transforms. Some loves erupt in the same way, fierce and untamed, consuming everything in their path. Writing this poem felt like standing in the center of such a blaze, reliving relationships that burned with a heat too intense to sustain. It’s a reflection on passion’s paradox: the warmth that draws us in, the flames that scorch us..the smoke that leaves us gasping for air. We’ve all felt it, haven’t we? The kind of love that feels like standing too close to the sun — warming and blistering all at once. You know it’s dangerous, but you can’t look away. There’s something hypnotic about the glow, a belief that maybe this is what love is meant to feel like.
I think, as humans, we’re often drawn to the things that hurt us, as if pain itself is proof that we’re alive. It’s that contradiction that shaped this poem. The way we gamble on love even when we know the odds.But this isn’t just about the person who helped light the fire. It’s about the roles we play in keeping the flames alive, even when we know the blaze might consume us. Maybe we feed the fire because the heat feels better than the cold, or because we’ve convinced ourselves that something so intense, so all-encompassing, must be worth the risk. There’s a peculiar kind of hope that burns alongside the flames—a belief that maybe, just maybe, we can control the uncontrollable. That we can harness the fire, keep it alive without letting it destroy us.
It’s a truth I’ve wrestled with, this tug-of-war between self-preservation and surrender. Love like this has a way of making us complicit, of turning us into both the victim and the arsonist. We stoke the embers with memories, with apologies, with a desperate desire to cling to what’s already slipping through our fingers. Maybe it’s not just the heat that draws us in, but the illusion of invincibility, the belief that we’re strong enough to stand in the inferno without getting burned. I’ve pulled shards of my own past to piece this realization together—fragments still smoldering from relationships that burned too brightly, too fast. The kind where passion was a flame, burning high and wild, illuminating everything it touched but leaving shadows in its wake. These experiences became the embers that inspired the poem, capturing moments of both intensity and fragility, of love’s brilliance and its inevitable decay. And maybe that’s the heart of it, the recognition that we sometimes hold onto what burns us because the warmth feels like a lifeline. Even when we know the fire can’t last, even when we see the ash starting to fall, we linger. Not because we don’t see the end coming, but because we want to feel alive in the fleeting brilliance of it all.
The imagery of fire isn’t accidental. I wanted the poem to feel visceral, almost physical, to make readers see, feel, and even maybe even get the scent of the smoke of a love that’s both alive and destructive. Fire is unpredictable and endlessly fascinating, much like love at its most chaotic. Love isn’t always soft whispers and gentle touches. Sometimes it’s an inferno that roars through everything you thought you knew, leaving ashes in its wake. And yet, there’s something sustaining in the heat, even as it consumes. The closing lines, “drench me in kerosene, extinguish every dream” // “because embers glow, but never last, the future fades into the past,” are merely an elegy for a love that was never meant to endure. Kerosene symbolizes how volatile those dreams were, just how easily they ignited and how quickly they burned out. The embers are haunting, their glow a bittersweet reminder of the intensity that once was, but the inevitability of its end.And I suppose that this poem is seemingly about that too, inevitability. A love destined to collapse under its own weight. But it’s also very much about the scars left behind and the lessons they carry. Even when the fire fades, its warmth lingers, reshaping us in ways both painful and enlightening.
Ultimately, this piece came from a deeply personal place. It’s the scar tissue of my heart, stitched together by the rhythms of longing, regret, and reflection. My hope is that it resonates with anyone who’s ever been consumed by a love that was as destructive as it was beautiful. It’s a story of heartbreak and resilience, a tribute to those who’ve danced in the flames and emerged, soot-stained but stronger. For anyone who’s ever been drawn to the fire, this one’s for you.
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