Ink Beneath the Skin

I found the book by accident,

a thrift store corner, dust and quiet,

wedged between a haunted novel

and casseroles from 1983.

The spine cracked like tired bones—

Collected Works of Mira Devine,

a name I didn’t know,

but something in the silence said, open me.

I was 26 and breaking—

not loudly,

not in any way you'd notice—

but soft and slow,

like wallpaper peeling in a forgotten room.

My brother had just died.

Motorcycle, no helmet, no goodbye.

He was the flame,

always visible,

always burning bright.

I was not.

I lived in shadows,

in whispered apologies,

in the background

of everyone else’s story.

But that winter,

the cold crept in

and stayed.

On page forty-three,

I met a poem called

The Ashes Still Speak.

Fourteen lines.

No title bold enough to prepare me

for the one that held me still:

Be the fire that does not beg to be seen.

I didn’t cry.

Not right away.

I just stared.

At letters inked by a stranger

who somehow knew

I’d been dimming myself for years.

I read it again.

And again.

And ten more times

until the line lit something

beneath my skin.

Be the fire—

not the spark,

not the flame in photographs,

but the slow-burning kind

that never asks for applause

yet warms an entire room.

It sat with me

through long nights

and kitchen-floor grief,

through therapy sessions

where I said “fine”

instead of “I’m falling.”

I taped it to my mirror.

I carried it in my coat.

I recited it

like a spell

in checkout lines

and waiting rooms

and parking lots

where I didn’t know

why I kept going.

Then came the night—

bookstore, open mic,

my breath a trapped animal.

I read the poem aloud,

voice trembling like a wire.

When I finished,

a stranger pressed my hand:

“That line,” they whispered,

“That line.”

And I knew—

some words live

beyond the page.

A month later,

in a studio that smelled of ink

and antiseptic dreams,

I handed a wrinkled note

to a tattoo artist named Jessa.

“You sure?” she asked.

I nodded.

“It saved me,” I said.

“I want to wear it now,

just above the ribs—

where the ache used to live.”

And so she wrote it,

small, script, delicate:

be the fire that does not beg to be seen.

It stung,

but the kind of pain

that tells you:

you’re still here.

Now, when I dress in quiet mornings,

when I catch my reflection sideways,

I see it—

my prayer, my pact,

my permanent reminder.

I still grieve.

I still miss him.

I still lose my way

some days.

But I no longer doubt

the worth of quiet flames.

Not all fires are loud.

Not all power needs proof.

And some poems

live inside you

long before you ever read them.