I set fire to the past by burning photographs, old diaries, and your heart-shaped pendant – a shackle around my wrist until now. Doused you in alcohol and watched as the flames consumed you.

And yet you still persist.

In the dulling embers, buried in yesterday’s ashes, your heart still lingers.

Billie-Leigh Burns is a writer from Liverpool. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published by Fictionette, 50 Word Stories, and Naked Cat Lit Magazine. She is currently working on a novel set in a dystopian future.