The Night After the Fire

The night does not speak—

it only circles the dying fire,

waiting for what must finally end.

Even the wind keeps its distance, as if my hands

might mistake it for some returning memory,

or for a ghost sifting through the ash

for stolen light.

~~~

I’ve stared too long at abandoning light,

watched it peel itself away from fire

until all that’s left is a trembling memory

of when things refused to end.

It’s foolish, I know, to keep lifting my hands

toward smoke, searching the ash

for anything that might still resemble memory.

~~~

But grief is a feral thing—

it feeds on memory,

claws through the cooling light,

and settles in the marrow like ash

you can’t wash off your hands.

Some endings don’t wait to end;

they stalk you long after the last fire.

~~~

And I have loved too many things that turned to fire,

watched too many futures blister into memory,

felt too many beginnings crawl toward their end

before they ever learned how to hold their own light.

Maybe that’s why I keep sifting through ash—

to understand what my hands

keep losing.

~~~

Tonight, even my hands

look haunted by the fire,

outlined with a residue of ash,

smudged with someone else’s memory—

as if I stole my own light

and let it slip into its end.

~~~

So let it end.

Let the dark clasp its cold hands around the last light,

let the fire sink into ash,

and let memory decay until it loosens its grip.

~~~

I will rise from this ruin with empty hands,

carrying nothing but the dark’s unflinching memory

that everything burns—

and every fire ends in ash.