Step one
Take a breath
Taste the smoke on your tongue
Never once believed I could own your smile
Feel it burn in your throat
Ashes dancing on your lips
But just the thought of it could keep me going for that day
Know your pain
I didn’t know the cruelty of my own love

Know the feeling of the fear
As heat rises around you
Flames flirting with your fingertips
But I knew that I loved you before I liked you
Feel it sting you
So I held onto you until I couldn’t bare the burn

Hope is not the absence of fear
But the acknowledgment of very possible disaster
Just to take the chance anyway

Step Two
Don’t regret that
There is strength in every leap of faith
I am not stupid
For thinking I had a chance
No matter where you fall to
You keep this clenched in your balled up fists
You hit the ground
Or you hit the waves
You hit the fire
But I will never forgive myself
For watching you shine bright
As I burn away
It stays

Be proud
Hold on to that
I will

Step Three
Name it
Love
Name the fire
But I–
Name the flames
You don’t–
Name the pain and soot and destruction
Call it what it is
I don’t know
Yell
Scream if you have to
Tear your lungs in half if you have to
Healing can only begin
When you know what you’re healing from
I want to hate you with every bone in my body
To unlearn that wicked smile
So I can remember my own
Which I abandoned in the process of memorizing yours

Step Four
Memorize this place in your mind
A crowded hallway
A misstep in my direction
Every tear
Every punched wall
Every cry that kept bouncing back to you because
I asked you to move
No one was listening
Because no one wanted to

Every stretched out hand that came up empty
Every dream that faded to smoke
Acknowledge it is real
I regret nothing
It was all real
But I would never do it, again

Step Five
Step back
Walk away from the fire
I’ve nurtured it for far too long
Just to watch it take me over
From the hurt
From the lost hope
From the frustration that nothing is working
I want to put it out

Step back
Sometimes you just have to let the fire burn
I step back
And remember you will be there when it exhausts itself

But you can’t put out a flame with gasoline
And sometimes
That’s all they give you to work with
So you must let go
Even when you continued to step forward
I step back
Let go

If they won’t accept something is broken
No tool you have will fix it

Step Six
Forgive yourself

Step Seven
Forgive yourself

Step Eight
Forgive yourself

Step Nine
Forgive yourself

(Takier)
I relearn my smile, little by little
In fear that one day, I might relapse
And you’ll watch the fire in my eyes go out
As if it was yesterday

I'd be left with nothing but charred memories
And I deserve it
Right?

No
There is nothing heroic about sitting in the flames
Just so no one dies alone
Call it what it is

A lie

And you don’t have to tell it anymore

Because my life is worth saving too