The Flame is Mine Now

You ran. I have never said that word with contempt. Fire is a good reason to run.

But it was ours. It started in a life we were both standing in. When you went, you did not take your half. There is no half of a fire. You left the whole thing with me.

Carrying it alone has a weight I will not dress up. There were years when the heat was only heat. No lesson in it. Just the carrying, and the question of why I had not run too.

A fire you keep is different from a fire that keeps you. Somewhere in the carrying, it changed hands. What happened to me became what I hold. A wound is what it was. An inheritance is what it is.

You ran from the fire.
I carry it forward without you.
Both are facts now. Neither is an accusation.

The fire is not waiting for you. Neither of us is.