The day I will let myself in the pursuit of love again is when I have willingly walked through the fire

What I kept ablaze was burning as a boundary. It was a warning sign, a deterrent to those who wander, a place where I burned previous hopes, expectations, vulnerabilities, and desires, because they repeatedly led me to disappointment—a path that is a great source of inner dreadfulness.

Burning was the act of protecting myself—to keep love away from me. It was a conscious choice to set it ablaze, to lead it away whenever it arose before me. The cost of ever letting myself walk through the flames had become so high that only something extraordinary could justify paying it—something too shrouded by uncertainty.

The flames of which I created are intentional, they are the very place where I concealed myself; I chose them as protection, and they serve their purpose, no individual could ever get close enough to inflict harm. Yet, as time passes, I am the one who is standing nearest to it; I am the one myself breathing in the smoke every day.

Before I realize it, the smoke starts to obscure my view. Definitions start to contort, it becomes harder to distinguish caution from avoidance, wisdom from fear, and self-sufficiency from isolation, just like how beliefs start to obscure parts of reality when it is constantly fed and never challenged.

Smoke itself does not kill through violence; rather, it does so through obscurity. It deprives one of visibility, it makes it much more difficult for them to see the reality of what is actually in front of them.

I have spent so long protecting myself from being burned that I risk losing sight of why I lit the fire to begin with.

The fire protects me from the burns that lie beyond it, while the smoke shields me from what may be worth the risk.

The greatest danger may not be the flames themselves, but forgetting what the world looks like beyond the haze that surrounds it. To allow myself into the undertaking of love again would mean walking through the fire according to my own will.