When Fire Forgets Itself

It does not end with thunder.

No grand collapse of sparks,

no storm of fire scattering into night.

The end comes softly,

a single ember shrinking to silence,

a light that once roared

now curling into itself.

I watch the last flame bend low,

its body fragile as a breath,

its glow trembling against the dark

as if reluctant to leave.

For a moment, it seems alive,

a pulse refusing to surrender.

Then it exhales —

a sigh more than an ending,

and the room grows larger with shadow.

What remains?

The shape of warmth in the air,

the scent of smoke stitched to memory,

the faint outline of hands once held near.

Ashes are not emptiness

but testimony:

proof that something burned here,

proof that it mattered enough to vanish.

I sit beside what is gone

and understand at last:

endings are not silence,

but translations.

A flame becomes ember,

an ember becomes ash,

and ash becomes

a soil for something unnamed.

Still, I miss the fire.

Still, I press my palms

to the darkened wood

as if heat might return.

The last flame lingers

not in the hearth,

but in the heart

that remembers its glow.