Crowned In Flame.

It will not creep in silence,
but erupt in a scream of flame
a rupture like heaven torn by thunder,
white-hot, merciless, godless.
At the summit of love’s bloom,
where my husband’s fingers lace through mine,
where small voices call me “Mama”
with the trust of unopened flowers,
where words I’ve written
ride the wind in a thousand tongues
I am lifted in fire.

Wrong place, right time.
The world shatters in a howl,
and I plunge into a light so savage
it devours every shadow I’ve known.
The blaze claims me whole,
and in its fury, I vanish.

Yet I wake on the other side.
The fire gone, the warmth remains.
I am five again,
a dark-skinned child nestled in plush carpet,
my palms no bigger than sparrow wings,
warm with morning’s hush.
The living room glows like honey,
Daddy dozes with the TV murmuring,
his breath steady as tide.
Mummy sings as she stirs the pot,
her voice flowing through the walls
like a hymn that never ends.
I laugh, I tease, I press my head
to his shoulder- an awkward, beloved side hug.

If this is the ending,
let the fire not consume but carry.
Not as ash, nor smoke,
but as a threshold of flame,
a gate of gold where love walks back to me,
whole, unshattered, eternal.
And the blaze that broke me
becomes the light that crowns me.