Watch My Heart Burn. Poem by Olorunkemi Kareem

I am tired.
Tired of folding my heart into smaller shapes
just so you'd find it easier to hold.
Tired of swallowing my pain
until it tasted like nothing.

I gave you everything—
my midnight confessions,
my unguarded laughter,
the softest parts of me
I never showed anyone.

I called you family,
I tagged you as a friend,
but to you I'm just an acquaintance—
a flicker in your crowded sky,
a disposable warmth you never meant to keep.

You don't see the nights
I lay awake carving your name
into the walls of my trust,
how I waited for you to look at me
like I mattered.

You don't see the ache—
the way it coils in my ribs
like a nest of thorns.

I am tired of the quiet betrayals,
the careful distance,
the way your eyes slide past mine
as if I am something you can't be bothered to remember.

Look at me now—
I am an inferno of disappointment.
I am a ruin built from every promise you broke.

So watch my heart burn—
watch the flames lick up every memory,
every fragile hope I once carried for us.

This fire is my final confession.
Let it scorch your indifference.
Let it consume the lie
that this ever felt like love.

I am done pretending.
I am done bleeding for you.
All that's left is this raw, red agony—
and the ashes you can never sweep away.