The Flame

For most of my girlhood I believed
To be in love was to be afraid.

Fear bonded two souls and thus this must be love.

I was wrong,
Deeply so.

To be in love was to be betrayed, it was holding your hand on a gas stove,
Letting the fire burn your fair girl skin,
The flesh melting away like candle wax
To reveal she,

A woman hidden underneath those baby teeth,

A woman, a firestarter, an arsonist.