I don’t know if it was the way you said my name, or the heat of your fingertips on my cheeks after you kissed me that night, but whatever it was, I couldn’t stop giving everything I had to keep you satisfied.

Everything was good until I lit myself on fire, and even then I was quite oblivious to the damage I was causing. You see, I have an addiction to broken souls. My passion is fixing , and sometimes, that’s a beautiful thing, until you destroy everything you have to make someone else smile. Two years ago I found you, and to this day, I can’t forget you. Partial to the pain you caused, but also to the love you threw into every action, movement, and step I make.

I met him in an old bookstore flipping through dusty records. His hair fell over his eyes messily, and the perfect glimpse of his bright green eyes peeked through. He smelled of coffee and the green box of incense from the cafe down the street, I assumed that he always smelled like that, coincidentally those two things were my favorite scents. His was chewing on his lip stressfully, and I think between the raggedy old chucks, ripped jeans covered in paint, & his hands gently filing through the records, I decided I wanted to know him. Since that moment, old bookstores, small coffee shops, and records became our thing.

He became my world and I became his, and somewhere in between that, I went from caring for him to burning myself to please him. I guess you can’t see someone’s insides from the books they read and the aroma they bring, but lord I wish you could. My tendency for loving broken things went to an extreme and I found myself trying to fix every broken thing inside of him. You see, when you find someone like him, there’s always an excuse. An excuse to tell yourself so when someone asks, “why are you still around him?” you can say “because he loves me”, and that makes your actions feel validated. When in all reality, you are giving up everything you are for someone who doesn’t even want to be fixed. You so desperately want to see who you thought he was, so you begin to burn your dreams, goals, grades, friendships, and self respect in hopes that what you can offer him is enough to change his mind.

My life fell to pieces because I spent my time stitching together someone who was just tearing themselves apart. I gave my free time, my school hours, my three ams, my passions, and my life up in hopes that I could protect someone from themselves. I never seemed to notice him pulling out the stitches I just sewed, or blowing out the candle I just lit. Because his lies made me happy, he was giving me promises that nobody else had, and he made me feel wanted, something I never was. I felt, for once in my life, needed by someone else, and that fueled my drive to give him everything in return.

You see when you wrap yourself up in reasons and excuses to be with someone who can’t bother to help themselves, you lose yourself. After a short while things went from loving each other in the midst of sunrise to him apologizing at my feet and begging for forgiveness because, “he didn’t mean it” and “he loves me”, and you accept his apology because you know he is more than his fears, he is more than his anger, he is more than his hardships and flaws, and in your eyes, you think you can fix him.

It was when I lit myself on fire, that I realised what I was doing. After my friends had left, and my dreams were smashed, and my sleepless nights would never be recovered, that I noticed him unstitching himself. My god it was hell to leave him. When you light yourself on fire, you feel the pain and for the first time in three months, I felt the pain catching up to me. It takes a lot to say goodbye to someone you put everything into, but you can never fix someone who doesn’t want to be fixed. You can’t spend your days lighting yourself on fire to give him the hope he doesn’t want.

So, I said goodbye. I will always love and care for him. But I had to stop setting myself on fire for his amusement. Whether you're lost in the fire, or holding the flame to your finger in hopes that the aroma of burning flesh will feed his craving for love, stop. I realised that some people don’t want to be saved, and though it hurts you to see them suffer, you can’t light yourself on fire in hopes of soothing his sadness.

This is to you,

This is to me,