Alchemy of Living

She looks at me -

thirty years of fire flickering in her skin,

that glow so certain,

as if wind could not touch it.

I see it in her eyes:

she believes I must hunger

for what she still guards.

I feel her pulse of competition -

sharp, rising,

mistaking shadow for threat.

But envy? No.

Compete? I laugh,

softly, like a secret kept too long.

She cannot see:

her crown is made of smoke,

her flame, unsteady,

is not yet warmth.

She has not learned

the quiet feast of silence,

the weightless marrow of joy

that asks for no witness.

I have crossed storms

she still names passion.

I have worn and shed

the shoe she is only now lacing.

And here I remain,

fifty years carved into me,

none I would surrender

for her fragile illusion of power.

So I laugh-

because one day,

she will know.

Freedom waits not in youth,

but in the long, patient

alchemy of living.