THE FIRE YOU ONLY MEET ONCE

There’s a fire that comes at the very end— not when something dies, but when you finally admit it did.

It’s not red. It’s not bright. It’s the color of a truth you spent half your life outrunning.

It burns in a way that doesn’t want your body— only the parts you hid: the apology you never said, the hope you carried too long, the version of yourself you couldn’t keep alive.

This flame waits in the gut-level dark, where your denial goes to rot. It shows up the moment you stop pretending you’re fine.

It doesn’t cleanse you. It doesn’t forgive you. It doesn’t care how hard you tried.

It just strips everything you used to call “strength” and leaves you staring at the soft, shaking truth you built your armor to protect.

And here’s the part no one talks about:

You don’t walk through this fire. It walks through you. Slow. Cruel. Precise.

It takes every lie you wrapped around your heart just to make it beat each morning and sets them on a pyre you can’t look away from.

And when it’s done— when the smoke of who-you-were finally stops rising— you’re left barefoot in a silence that doesn’t hurt anymore.

Not healed. Not reborn. Just emptied in a way that feels like the first honest breath you’ve taken in years.

That’s the real ending. The fire that doesn’t burn you— just shows you the parts that needed to die.

And the terrifying thing is: you feel lighter.

Ariana Hunter