We're Broken People

Angel on Fire

[Inspired by Angel on Fire-Halsey]
—
I remember they once called me a phoenix.
With eyes of fire and determination setting alight the fiery passion of youth.
"She's the next biggest star of the century, I'm telling you."
And oh, how I burned.
Brighter than any flame, so bright it hurt to look at me, I had the whole world in my hands.
And I believed I could rule.
I remembered that I'd laugh and drink and talk about things, fall in love in my backyard. Everyone would stare at me, they couldn't take their eyes off me, I was the darling starlet, the centerpiece.
So higher and higher and went, soaring up into the sky on my wings, at the top of the world.
I believed I had it all.
I was wrong.
I had been so absorbed basking in my own glory, that I didn't notice.
I flew too close to the sun that was setting in the east, and now my wings started to crumble and disintegrate, melting off in hideous chunks.
And then I was burning, burning up as I started to fall, spiralling out of control.
And oh, how the flames burned, searing across my skin in red hot agony as I screamed for it to stop, for it to all end.
They always said I had a fire burning inside me, and that it was what drove me on, but I understood now, that fire was burning me from the inside, burning out of control.
I was beyond salvation.
And then I tumbled to the ground, my wings nothing but melted wax now, my skin marred with the ugly scars of fire, and desperately, I reached out for someone-anyone to help me.
No one took my hand.
The very same people who had once said they would always support me turned their backs on me, the whole word covered their eyes and ignored me, they threw me away as if I had just been another disposable item.
I was all alone.
They said I was a phoenix.
They were wrong-no, they lied to me.
A phoenix rises from the ashes, but all I was now was a wingless bird.
I would never rise again.
Now they laugh and drink and talk about things, fall in love in my backyard, while I hide and cower in the corner.
And I realised how alone I was.
I was an angel.
An angel on fire.
But then I burned too bright and the fire started eating at me, and I had fallen to the earth.
A fallen angel without her wings.
Standing in the ashes of who she used to be.
And I'm faded away, fading into the background, into the noise of this world, into the darkness.
But you know,
I used to be on fire.