The Last Flame

I watch the last flame

the way one watches a mouth finally close

after years of shouting.

It shivers. It hesitates.

It does not beg to be saved.

This fire once lived everywhere.

In walls. In bedsheets.

In the way harshness learned my name.

It burned slow and constant,

not the kind that warns you with smoke,

but the kind that teaches you

to call heat normal.

I fed it without knowing.

Breath by breath. Apology by apology.

I learned how to move carefully,

how to keep my edges small

so the fire would not notice me

wanting more air.

Still, it took what it wanted.

Self-worth. Soul. Voice.

It branded me with memories

that flared without permission,

a heat that followed me

even when the room was cold.

Now the flame is smaller.

It no longer fills the space.

It flickers like a tired witness

who has finally said everything

they came to say.

I am not afraid of it anymore.

I kneel close enough to feel

what remains—

not pain, but warmth.

Not threat, but proof.

This is how endings arrive:

not with collapse,

but with clarity.

Not with screaming,

but with the soft agreement

between fire and air

that the work is done.

The flame exhales.

It leaves behind ash

fine as breath,

light enough to scatter,

heavy enough to remember.

I do not carry the fire forward.

I carry the knowing.

That I survived what tried to consume me.

That I learned the difference

between heat and love.

That light does not have to burn

to be real.

The last flame fades.

The room does not go dark.

AI Disclosure: This poem was written with the assistance of AI.