I am told that love is an inferno, that it is all consuming and hot with passion.   I am told that love fills your stomach with butterflies and makes your heart flutter.  I am told that being in love is the best thing in the world. 

 I have never been in love.  I have never longed to caress another, to lay next to someone and listen to their heartbeat.  I have never dreamt of holding someone close, of dancing in a kitchen we shared.  I have never yearned to intertwine fingers with someone, to walk hand in hand, arms swinging against each others’ legs.  No, I have never, I will never, be in love.

Well, maybe I was, once.  

But, it was not like that.  When I looked at her I saw nothing but light. She put a smile on my face and an inferno in my heart, cheeks flushed red with the warmth radiating from within.  But, it was not like what I had been told love was like.  

Nobody told me of the bone-crushing guilt, of the self-hatred tied in. I was never told that there were strings attached.  The suffocating loathing when looking in a mirror, the disgust with what I might be.  The butterflies in my stomach were now nausea and confusion on why I was feeling this.  Nobody told me that being in love would make you stare at the ceiling each night, wondering what you have done wrong to deserve this.  I never heard that being in love would involve biting your tongue, swallowing your words to preserve your neck. Watching numbers climb on a TV screen, the headlines screaming of the dangers involved in this “lifestyle.”  

I hadn’t realized how unattainable these fantasies for my future were.  How wrong of me it was to think she could ever love someone like me.  I wish someone had warned me, had told me about the blisters the fire of love brings.  I wish someone had warned me of the shame, of the pit in your stomach when those around you say people like you are going to hell.  I wish someone had warned me that I would tremble at the thought of saying two words out loud.  I wish I had known that I would savor each visit with family, regardless of their bitter and blatant hate, wondering if this would be the last time I could feel safe in their house.  

Then again, it would be a lie to say I wouldn’t ignore all the warning signs.  They’d say we were sinners, that we’re eternally damned.  But we’d burn in the flames, together, hand in hand.

But as time passed and we grew, she reached a realization that would’ve sent me over the moon.  But it fell at my feet, an answered prayer on deaf ears, because who I had become meant it didn’t matter anymore.  Though I longed for her to see me the way I saw her, who I realized I am meant we just couldn’t be.  Undeserving of love, pleading for pain, though I got what I’d wanted, it wasn’t the same.  Right place, wrong time. If I’d known myself earlier and she’d known herself late, then there would’ve been a chance we’d have met the same fate.  Could’ve burned together, could’ve felt each others’ heat, but once we grew into our own we still would’ve suffered defeat.

Even though I tell myself I have accepted a part of me I would’ve tied a tourniquet around without hesitation, a pit of shame still festers inside of me.  I tell myself that I am proud of who I am, that I am ready to live my truth but still cannot speak these ideas into existence.  I tell myself that I have grown as a person, that I have found the strength to meet my own eyes when I look into the mirror and mouth two words.  Instead, it seems I am all too familiar with ivory tiles and my toes.

Maybe, one day,  I will be brave enough to face the fire, to let my hands blister and my face burn.  Soon, I will be strong enough to take the heat, the remarks that I know are coming will hiss as they come for my throat, but I will be able to turn them to nothing but ash.  Their words will no longer hurt me, they will be fighting fire with fire. The metallic taste of blood will become foriegn, biting my tongue around loved ones won't be muscle memory anymore. I will be bold enough to spit out my own words, no longer needing to swallow and force a smile.  One day, I will sit amongst family, whether blood or not, regardless of whose hand sits in my lap, fingers intertwined and cheeks flushed.  One day, I will dance in a kitchen I share, I will hear a heartbeat other than my own.  Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum.  

Maybe, I’m not cursed after all.  Still, I sit here in a dark room with a cracked mirror, wondering why I am this way.  I wonder what I have done to deserve this pain, but when amends were finally made, they provided no aid.  The cost of unveiling myself through years of thought merely made me more distraught.  A tantalizing glimpse of a fantasy that could’ve become my future.  Our briefly intertwined infernos have become nothing but ash. As I shiver and stare at the ceiling, I reach for the matchbox beside me.  Struggling to strike a match, I wonder if I will ever be in love again.