After the Fire, the Whisper

When the fire finally died,

we stood inside the silence

like two survivors of a language

we no longer spoke.

The walls were blackened,

the air thick with the ghosts

of things that once had names.

Even our shadows looked uncertain,

as if they weren’t sure

which one of us to follow.

You touched a charred beam

the way one touches a scar —

gently,

as if afraid it might still hurt.

I watched your fingers shake

and could not tell

if they trembled from memory

or from hope.

Destruction is loud.

But what follows

is quieter than breath.

A whisper settling in the ruins,

searching for a place

to land.

That night we learned

what love looks like

when stripped of its decorations —

not a blaze,

but an ember

that refuses extinction.

You found a cup unbroken

beneath the ashes.

I found your name

in the cracks of my voice.

We gathered what remained:

a shard of tenderness,

a stubborn fragment of trust,

the faint outline

of a future that hadn't fled.

And in that hush,

where even grief seemed tired,

you said,

"Maybe this is where we begin."

Not in the fire

that once dazzled us,

but in the small, fragile whisper

that rose afterward —

the part of love

that survives

because it knows

how to stay

when everything else

is gone.