“Drop everything now; meet me in the pouring rain. Kiss me on the sidewalk, take away the pain.
‘Cause I see sparks fly.” –Taylor Swift

He left me burning.
He left me alone, heartbroken, beaten.
He left me burning.
A steady stream of blood trickled down my face from the gash he gave me in his anger. Help wasn’t coming; I was utterly and completely alone.
Just the way he wanted.
Because he never wanted me.
Not when we met.
Not after our first kiss in the rain.
Not now, even though he promised he would always, always, love me.
Not ever.
As I lay, chained and shackled, I knew the flames had begun. Consuming all in their path, stopping for nothing. Fed by my shattered heart. Burning, hot and strong.
Like his hatred for me.
Like my hatred for what he’d done.
Like the love I still felt for him.
And before I knew it I was burning. Burning inside and out. Burning from the pain he inflicted. Burning from the flames he’d started.
Burning from my heart.
The flames were wild, uncontrollable, just like him. Igniting the final straw: his fury. And I knew it was my fault. He told me so. Whenever something went wrong, it was always my fault. I’d never been good enough for him and I deserved the burning.
I longed for the future, when I knew I would somehow find the strength to free myself from my shackles, from the burning. I would have to do it alone, he was long gone by now, and wouldn’t have helped me anyways. Instead he would have thrown back his head and laughed his breath rich with alcohol, at my whimpering. He would have hit me again and screamed endless insults and profanity at me. He would tell me I deserved it.
And I did.
I would return to him when he was sober and I was healed, and he would hold me in his arms again. I could almost hear what he would say:
“It’s okay baby, I forgive you for what you’ve done.”
And I would sigh, wondering how I could deserve someone as wonderful as him. Wondering why he gave his time to someone as unpretentious as I.
Knowing it was only a matter of time before the flames began again.
Only, a matter of time before I was burning again.
But this time it was too late to stop the fire. The burning had begun with me.
It was the one who I loved that was hurting me, killing me. He had left me here, wounded, without any way to escape. He had started the flames that came nearer with every passing second. He had left me here for good this time and I knew it. There would be no happy scene of reunion; there would be no reunion at all.
He had left me here to die.
My lover, my abuser.
My murderer.
I knew that he had wanted me, never loved me. But I had never imagined it would end like this. End with burning.
I should have realized, though. Because everything comes full circle, and in the end, I was the only one who got hurt, who suffered the pain of his anger.
Who felt the burning.
I barely had time to choke out my final words before the flames engulfed me.
“I love you.”
I was gone; beaten, neglected, abused.
I was burning.