The Fire You Try to Bury

 You don’t have to explain

the dark—

I’ve lived there,

long enough to name its corners,

to braid its silence

into songs only the cedar trees understand.

I’ve walked inside storms

with no name,

where shadows stretch longer than memory

and even your own voice

feels like betrayal.

So when you speak in thorns

or vanish in mist,

I don’t flinch.

I’ve learned that even

the sharpest roots

belong to something growing.

You carry two winds:

one that howls, untamed and biting,

and one that pulls back,

soft as moss over stone—

wishing to shelter,

but unsure you’re allowed to.

And me?

I’ve felt both.

I’ve danced beside wildfire

and waited with bare feet

in freezing streams

until my breath returned.

You don’t scare me.

Not the wild bursts,

not the silence after.

I know the pull

of being both flame and ash.

There is a part of you

that rushes like riverwater,

eager to carve new places—

and another

that builds dams,

ashamed of the flood behind it.

But I see all of you.

I carry the patience of pine,

the knowing of grandmothers

who weaved baskets for holding things

not meant to be named.

Maybe I am not

your first trail,

not the marked path

you’d planned to follow—

but I am the one

whose steps will not falter

when the way bends.

The one who knows

how to cup your fire

without burning.

The one who waits

not because she’s weak,

but because she knows

what strength it takes

to bloom slow

in a land scorched raw.

You don’t have to name me.

The trees already do.

The wind has whispered it

across your spine

more times than you’ll admit.

I am yours—

not in possession,

but in presence.

Not in title,

but in truth.

And I will remain—

quiet as the earth,

watching,

knowing,

ready

if ever you turn

and finally see.