Between Bruises & Blooms

You struck the match.

Remember that.

When strangers arrived
with buckets of gasoline
and usernames like knives,

you had already
set the room burning.

You picked the fight.

You fed the crowd.

You stood beneath
the flickering lights
of a phone screen
and gave them
something to watch.

Then somehow
my name appeared
in the smoke.

Tagged.

Mentioned.

Dragged back
into a story
I had already crawled
out of bleeding.

What did you do now?

Nothing.

That was the funniest part.

I was somewhere else
living a life
that no longer required
checking your temperature
before entering a room.

I wasn’t fighting you.

I wasn’t speaking about you.

I wasn’t standing
in the wreckage
begging anyone
to believe me.

You were doing
a perfectly good job
of telling on yourself.

And still,

my name floated
through the comments
like a ghost
people knew
had once haunted
your house.

Maybe that is what happens
when you hurt someone
badly enough.

Years later,
when the flames rise again,
people look toward
the woman who survived
the first fire.

But I wasn’t coming back
with water.

I had already learned
the most important lesson
you ever taught me:

some fires
should be allowed
to reveal
exactly
what started them.