The Glow Beneath the Ruin

I watch the final curl of flame shiver above the wood as if reluctant to surrender its trembling life. The fire has eaten all I once believed immovable leaving a hollowed shape that speaks softly with the hush of falling soot. In this dimming glow I sense the outline of my former self-rising only to sink again into the cradle of ash. It is a stillness heavy as thunder holding the last breath of all that has ended.

Heat lingers where brightness has fled drifting through the remnants like a fading vow. It presses upon me with a raw insistence reminding me of every fractured promise every dream that collapsed beneath its own weight. The burning was merciless, yet I yielded to it for I knew the flame consumes only what cannot endure.

From the blackened remnants a faint stirring begins. It is small subtle nearly mistaken for smoke. But it rises with a pulse steady and solemn shaped by the silence that follows ruin. I feel it gathering within the ashes of my thoughts finding strength in what has fallen away.

When the final spark folds into darkness a new self is born not in brilliance but in patient ascent. The night receives me, and I rise from the embers changed.