Fire Isn't Personal

You’re struggling to carry the heat

of what I left behind.

Each memory is a spark

that refuses to go out.

You let it settle where it wants.

Your skin flinches.

Fire isn’t personal.

It burns what it will.

It presses against the parts of you

that cannot understand me.

You fold.

I do not enjoy this.

It is not vengeance.

It is compassion, in the way the body can be cruel

without meaning to be.

Perhaps one day you will understand.

Perhaps not.

The point is not to see it now,

but to feel it, quietly,

and walk forward.

And when the ache subsides,

you will carry something lighter,

or heavier,

depending on how you measure it.

I do not name the rising.

It will happen, anyway.