Johnny Cash said
love would burn—
and I believed him.
I pictured fire
the way people talk about it—
warm, golden,
something that lights you up
without taking anything
you can’t replace.
I thought it would feel like passion.
Like heat in the right places.
Like something alive
that made everything brighter.
I didn’t know
fire also destroys.
Didn’t know
it could get inside you—
under your skin,
in your chest—
and stay there
long after the flames die out.
Now it’s not a blaze.
It’s embers.
A slow, aching glow
that won’t go out,
won’t let me forget
what it felt like
to be close enough
to get burned.
Because loving you
wasn’t loud in the end.
It didn’t explode.
It just kept burning
quietly—
taking pieces of me
with it
until I realized
I wasn’t warming up anymore.
I was breaking down.
And maybe
that’s what he meant—
not the kind of fire
you stand near,
but the kind
you don’t notice
is consuming you
until there’s nothing left
that doesn’t ache.
Through the Fog 