Ash Where We Once Burned

our love still lingered long after the flame died.

it curled in the air like smoke that refused to disappear, stubbor and sweet, and almost cruel in the way it stayed.

the fire was gone, but the warmth haunted the walls of my chest, not knowing where to go.

by then, though, we had already turned into ash — fragile, colorless, undone by the very heat we call passion.

i sit in the remains of us, palms pressed into the ruin, letting the gray dust cling to my skin like it still belongs there.

the wind moves gently, but even that feels merciless.

it carries pieces of you away before i can gather them, before i can convince myself that something whole can still be made from what we destroyed.

i breathe in the crisp memory of you laughter, the warmth of your hands, the promises we swore would outlive anything.

but fires do not survive on hope alone.

and we, in all our wanting and wounding, did not know how to stop burning each other. so now there is only this aftermath — no flames, no heat, just the quiet settling of what we were.

our love may have lingered, but we did not.

all that remains is the dust, resting where something beautiful once burned.