I walk the forest of us, each tree bowed with memory,
Its roots tangled deep in the soil of promise, trembling with history.
Beneath the canopy of our love, the ember rests,
Red against shadow, small and patient, alive in the hollow of my chest.
He says it is cold, that the flame sleeps at last,
Yet smoke curls like a whisper from the path he has passed.
I feel it in the quiet, the space between breath,
A glow I cannot touch, a ghost I cannot bless.
I do not step closer, do not reach with my hands,
For to interfere would be cruelty the forest demands.
So I tread softly where the ferns bends and sigh,
Watching the ember flicker beneath the indifferent sky.
The wind dances through the branches, carrying voices of old,
And I know the ember remembers all it was told.
Every spark is a promise, a temptation, a pain,
A fire lying patient, a threat to all we have lain.
I hum a low lullaby, a song in the dark,
To quiet the glow, to steady the spark.
But the forest is patient, and the ember is sly,
And I know that a flame can awaken and fly
I am neither villain nor guard, only witness and wood,
Only a heart that has loved and wishes it could.
I cannot command the wind, cannot still the rain,
Cannot stop what is sleeping from stirring again.
For our love is a forest, wild, beautiful, untamed,
And fire, even forgotten, may kindle unnamed.
So I hum to the dark to the wind, to the leaves,
And learn how to live with I cannot unweave.