I fell in love with a boy who was made of a fire that was the end of me. I was lost in the trance he put me in, because I lost myself in him while I was still looking for who I was. The essence of who I was became the fuel to his game. No one told me that love would be degrading; no one told me I could get lost in the whirlwind of a man’s spell. He spoke in poetry; his dark eyes drew me in. Nostalgia filled me, and I was captured by the scent of a future I could have with him.

He was not like the others, but then again, they never are.

He was a world I wanted to explore, he was the muse of every line, of every word; the essence of him drifts across the wrinkled pages of a thousand journals, and you could breathe him in. He was more than just a muse, but a cure for the block I kept hitting whenever I came out of my shock. Through him, I created words, I created characters, I created life. I redesigned reality and remade history with the simple thought of him in my mind. He was everything I wanted, but perhaps I was everything he expected.

I wasn’t the mystery.

I wasn’t the temptress in the mist.

I was not the girl that lured him in.

I was just another pastime, another hobby, another game he could play.

I thought it could have been something more, but he had other plans, other girls he'd rather talk to.

He has skillfully crafted my heart out of stone, and now I add the finishing touch: my wrapping a binding, rows and rows of chains that no one can ever unlock.

I turned myself into a maze.

I didn't want to know what love is.

I didn't want to know what it could do, because I added another adventure on my list -- which I wish on every star could be erased.

I want the time I spent thinking about him back, every single grain of sand to replace every second, every minute, every hour, every day I lost, collected and saved into the hourglass he emptied.

I want my past back, but for now, I’ll settle for the present, because I have a future to plan.

And thank God he’s not in it.

He was a walking flame, and I danced along the edges, admiring the hues of his fire, the colors he made and the destruction he could leave in his wake.

I wandered aimlessly into the smoke, drinking in all that he was, and I fell in love with the poetry of who he was.

However, I am no longer lost among the ashes of his flames. I am the cinders and embers that laid in his wake, that still breathed and burned. I will survive his fire, and I have learned my lesson about playing with matches in the dark. I am not the ruins of a love gone wrong, but a miracle reborn. I won’t let his flames touch my skin again because I was made of stronger steel, and I will not bend to the constraints or the limitations I allowed your fleeting love to place on me.

It is because of him that I thought I was far from the word "beauty."

It is because of him that I thought I was not worthy of the love I recklessly give, but could never have in return.

It is because of him that I thought I was weak.

It is because of him that I thought I was unlovable.

It is because of him that I thought that I deserved less than what he gave me.

Yet I now know that it’s not true.

I know that I am beautiful.

I know that I am worthy of the love I give, and deserve more than the same in return.

I know that I am strong.

I know that I am capable of love.

I know that I deserve more than cheap love he offered.

I know all this because I fell out of love with the dangers of his seductive flames, and fell in love with the passionate fire that burned longer and brighter than his: the love I had for myself.

There was a time where I may have played with too much fire, but now... I learned to become one.