When the Last Fire Breathes Out

There’s a moment—quiet as breath—

when the fire forgets

how to rise.

It leans back into itself,

a tired dancer folding at the waist,

gold melting into ember-red,

ember-red softening into ash-gray.

In that glow, I watch the end

arrive without announcement,

like someone closing a door

with careful fingers

so no one wakes.

The flame flickers again—

a small rebellion,

a final insistence

that it once lived bright.

Then it settles,

as all things must,

finding its last language

in the hush of cooling air.

I think about how endings come:

sometimes like storms,

sometimes like sparks,

but more often

like this—

a soft unraveling of heat,

a slow release of all we held

and all we tried to keep burning.

The fire teaches me that nothing

truly disappears.

It only shifts form—

light to smoke,

smoke to memory,

memory to the quiet warmth

we carry long after

the flames are gone.

As the final glow collapses,

I stay.

I watch.

I let the silence settle

over the last red pulse.

And in that dim, tender dark,

I understand:

Endings are not the moment

things stop—

they’re the moment

we choose to see what remains.

Tonight, as the last fire breathes out,

I gather its faint, fading heat,

and hold it like a promise—

that what burns down

can still become

the beginning

of something new.