When We Were Flame

We were always the spark,

a brief, bright defiance

against the unlit hush of before.

Our laughter was flint striking stone,

each day a kindling,

every promise wrought

in the language of flame.

But endings arrive like embers,

red strands thinning into absence,

intentions collapsing in on themselves.

We were never the firewood

we were the blaze,

the fever,

the longing to be more

than what we could hold.

Now, the world is a circle

of cooling rings,

where yesterday’s passion curls inward,

leaving only the softest glow

in the hollows of memory.

No inferno lasts forever;

love, too, consumes itself,

transforms, releases.

In the dim light,

we gather what remains,

stories that glimmer in retreat,

hearts still warm

from the heat of what was.

This is not ruin,

but renewal,

the start tucked inside the ending,

a seed beneath scorched ground.

Let us rise,

not from ashes,

but from the warmth that endures

long after the burning has ceased,

carrying light forward,

a promise slow to fade.