Ashes and Light

I wrote before about wanting to be wanted back.

Tonight I write from the other side of that want—

the place where the porch light still burns

but the hands holding it are blistered.

I wish I could unlatch the door of my chest

and set this love outside like a stray.

I wish I could go cold,

shut off the lighthouse,

let the bus rattle past with its empty seats

and never look up.

I hate this heart.

I hate how it burns itself down

to keep a place for others to stand.

There are days I call it holy—

the infinite fire, the unconditional flame—

and I wield it like a lantern

to guide or to comfort.

But there are nights like this

where the light is just heat

and the heat is just pain

and the pain feels endless.

Infinite heart, infinite wound.

I have tried to drown it, drug it,

bargain with it, slow it, starve it.

Nothing changes.

The fire flares, the fire feeds,

the fire keeps giving off warmth

even as it eats me.

I am not writing a redemption story.

I am not a saint.

I am a person with a scarred interior,

with nights of screaming into my own hands,

with history heavy as a wet coat.

I have wanted to disappear.

I have tried.

I have failed.

But failure is why this poem does not end in harm.

Even when I want the fire gone,

it refuses.

Even when I curse it,

it flickers on.

Even when the porch is empty,

it stays lit.

That is the truth and the ache:

I am broken and still burning.

I am destroyed and still sheltering.

I am exhausted and still reaching.

And because the fire won’t go out,

I will not let it burn others.

I will lay the wet coat by the hearth,

I will keep my seat on the bus warm,

I will give what warmth I can to anyone who enters,

and I will not end this poem on despair.

Not because I feel hopeful tonight—

I don’t.

But because this poem is proof

of what I cannot stop doing:

turning my own ashes into a small, stubborn light

that says to anyone who reads it,

even through the smoke:

You matter.

Come in.

Warm your hands.

Embers under ash — the fire still burning, even when I wish it wouldn’t.

This poem ends in light not because I’m hopeful, but because this is what my heart does even when I’m not. It keeps burning. It keeps offering warmth.