When We Burned Too Bright

STANZA I

The fire that once consumed us turns to smoke,

Each flame a promise we could not sustain.

I watch the final sparks retreat to night,

And feel the cold creep in where there was heat.

What burned so bright has left us only ash,

The dying glow a mirror of our love.

STANZA II

We built this blaze on something we called love,

Fed it with words that vanished into smoke.

You said forever, but forever turned to ash

Like everything too fierce for us to sustain.

I felt you burning with that reckless heat,

The kind that blazes brightest in the night.

STANZA III

How many hours did we defy the night,

Convinced our fire was different, was true love?

We thought we'd found a never-ending heat,

That we could breathe and not produce just smoke.

But no flame burns without the will to sustain,

And ours collapsed, became a bed of ash.

STANZA IV

Now all that's left is this gray, bitter ash

Where passion used to rage against the night.

I search for coals that I might still sustain,

Some ember of the thing we once called love,

But find only the ghosts inside the smoke,

The fading memory of vanished heat.

STANZA V

Tell me, was it ever real, that heat?

Or were we always destined to be ash,

Two people choking on their own sweet smoke,

Burning too fast to make it through the night?

Perhaps we mistook destruction for love,

Confused the thrill of fire with what can sustain.

STANZA VI

I know now that true things learn to sustain,

They warm instead of scorch, they nurture heat

Without consuming all they claim to love.

They leave behind more than a pile of ash,

More than the darkness rushing back at night,

More than these lungs still heavy with your smoke.

ENVOI

The smoke has cleared. What we could not sustain

Cooled in the night, surrendered all its heat.

I watch the final sparks retreat to night.

Author’s Note: This poem was written in the sestina format.

A sestina is one of the most intricate and demanding poetic forms ever created. Instead of relying on rhyme, it uses a strict pattern of six repeating end words that rotate through six stanzas and return again in a final three-line envoi. Because every stanza must use the same six words in a precise position, the poet is constantly working within tight constraints while still trying to maintain emotional flow, narrative clarity, and musicality.

It’s a form that tests both discipline and creativity, and many writers consider it one of the hardest poems to write. The challenge lies in balancing structure with meaning: letting the repeated words evolve, deepen, and shift in tone while still honoring the rigid pattern. When it works, a sestina becomes a kind of spiraling meditation, obsessive, lyrical, and uniquely powerful.