I burn, she steadies; my wild flame finds home in the shelter of her love.

I am the keeper of a flame, tender of a gentle heat that flares to conflagration— burning, hurting, so fierce I hide it:

doors barred, windows shut, the flue sealed tight to starve the fire.

Yet I can never extinguish it. It is too precious to me.

And so the cycle turns: fear and exhaustion, retreat into silence.

Until— into my life came a hearth:

steady, strong, built of fireproof love. A home of beauty, a welcome shelter that guards me from myself, and from the world.

The hearth asks little— only that I give my warmth. She bears the rest.

At last: a port against the winds, a refuge from the tempest that raged in me for a lifetime.

And I— I can never go back

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#essay #memoir #journal #osxs #100daystooffset #writing #poetry

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