Molasses Fire

 It wasn’t sugar.

It was what clung after the boiling,

what stayed when everything useful was taken.

Thick.

Slow.

Unwilling to let go.

I learned warmth that way..

heavy in the air,

sweet enough to keep you there,

hot enough to teach you silence.

Some rooms smelled like smoke and restraint.

Some prayers stuck to the ceiling

and never came back down.

You learned to breathe low,

keep your voice from catching fire.

Softness had rules.

Tenderness had consequences.

If you wanted to stay,

you learned how to make yourself palatable.

The burn didn’t come loud.

It came precise.

A quick sting that said enough.

The moment the body stops negotiating

and the mouth learns how to close on a no.

I keep sharp things near now..

not for violence,

for memory.

So I don’t forget what heat feels like

before it turns on you.

There was beauty, sure.

But it grew where it could,

through ash,

through clenched earth,

through the understanding

that surviving isn’t clean.

What lasts sinks.

Into skin.

Into bone.

Into the places no one claps for.

This doesn’t beg to be worn.

It stays because it knows how.

Because it learned restraint the hard way.

Because it understands

the difference between destruction

and keeping the fire.

This is not sweetness.

This is what remains.