There is a fire that consumes quietly,
its fingers tender as they trace the outlines
of things we were once too afraid to burn.
A heat, soft as loss,
devouring without asking —
like the stars that fall
in silent bursts,
vanishing without a sound
but leaving the night warm,
like the stillness after the storm.

I sit by the hearth,
the flames licking at the silence,
as if they know
that destruction wears the face
of something fragile —
the way a lover leaves,
softly, as though they were never there,
and yet, the room remains
so full of them
you wonder
if absence could fill a space
with something deeper than presence.

The fire speaks in ashes,
as if to say,
"I was once the sun,
and I, too, will set."
But still, I reach my hands toward it,
searching for the warmth
of things that vanish —
the way a poem disappears
on the page,
leaving graphite stains
in the shape of absence,
telling you everything
without a word.

The hearth hums with the quiet
of things undone —
a quietness like the seamless
works of Rilke,
where the evening spreads its wings
like a forgotten prayer
that no one remembers to say.

Here, too, in this soft destruction,
there is no voice
but the one that burns the edges
of every thought
until it is nothing but the flicker
of light you cannot hold.

I burn not because I wish to be
consumed,
but because I know
that some things must be lost
before they can be remembered,
like the way the heart still beats,
long after the body forgets
how to feel.

And the hearth,
a poet in its own right,
sings a hymn of things
we cannot keep —
the fire dancing
in the shape of what we leave behind,
warm,
and empty,
like a song that was never meant to end.