And so
I
Confined my
Life’s fire
To a minute radius
For fear
Of self immolation

Since
I believed
that to feel some warmth
was far better
Than destruction.

"But what of the darkness?
What of the winter?
How are you to survive
with such a derisory ember?”

To inquire
Into such fallacy
Eschews all tenets
Of primacy

Witness, as I
I have formed
The ultimate aegis and

have paid
In full
The requisite price

For how can the wintry colossus possibly
besiege a bastion of pure ice?