When a Life Goes Down in Flames

For a moment, I watched my own life go up, or rather, DOWN in flames as if I stood as a spectator, and nothing really affected me. 

For a blissful few seconds, my heart felt cold and empty, but then I felt the fire engulf it as it suddenly burst into a fiery, doomed thing no mortal could survive without some sort of Divine protection, but even as I burned I stood there quietly, staring, knowing there was nothing to say. 

I watched you as the flames assaulted my heart, the rest of my body so far still strangely intact. 

Cold even. 

Memories shot through my head like fiery arrows, one after the other. The day we did this, how we laughed over that, the way I had always felt safe with you, the touch of your hand, the warmth of you. 

I see your eyes pouring regret but no amount of tears can stop this inferno. 

It’s too late. 

What’s done is done, and it was done to ME, the one you swore to love, honor, and protect with your life. 

And then she showed up, or you sought her out, and you burned me to the ground as if I suddenly became nothing to you.

 An inconvenience. The Unchosen. 

I see the sorrow and recognize the shame in your lowered head, shoulders drooping as if suddenly the consequences of your decision are too much for you to bear. 

Yet, you watch as the flames suddenly leap from my heart and burn me to the ground, not intervening, keeping the words to yourself that could possibly still save me. 

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I’m joking.”

 “It didn’t happen.”

Any of these phrases would have thrown me into something like a relieved and chaotic version of myself where I could pretend your lies were true and adopt them as my own, cooling the heat with a ferocity that only pretense could do now, but you watched me burn, crying silently and staring at me like a thing to be pitied, a thing to be scorned, but not a person who you swore before God and man to love, honor, and protect. 

Not your wife. Not the Chosen anymore. 

The rejected, discarded, forgotten. The BETRAYED. That’s who you’ve made me. 

And as the flames take over what was left of me after years of trust and love blow away as ash in the wind, I become a burn pile. 

You decide there is nothing left to cry for, reach up and wipe your own tears, then turn and walk away. 

Allison