Ashes to Ice

I’ve been a wildfire in a paper town,

flames licking every word I can’t take back,

teeth sharp with truth,

tongue dipped in gasoline.

I call it honesty—

they call it arson.

And maybe we’re both right.

Other days,

I freeze like a locked screen.

Still. Silent.

I vanish behind glacial stares

and slow replies.

You won’t find me.

Not because I’m gone—

but because I buried myself beneath the cold

so I wouldn’t erupt again.

See, I was raised

on the gospel of survival:

be too much, or be nothing.

Set the room on fire

or leave it frostbitten.

Either way,

they’d never forget me.

But I’m tired.

Of sweeping up ashes.

Of melting and reforming.

Of people saying,

“I never know what version of you I’m gonna get.”

I want something gentler.

Something true.

A happy medium—

not perfect, but balanced.

A hearth, not a blaze.

A chill breeze, not a storm.

A heart that can stay

without scorching

or shattering.

So I’m learning now

to hold fire in one palm

and snow in the other,

to speak in warmth,

to listen with light.

To forgive myself

for the times I’ve burned

or disappeared.

Because I’m not made

of one thing.

I am the flicker

and the frost.

But I can choose

what I become.

From ashes to ice,

to something that lives

in the glow between.

That’s where I’ll build

my bridges.

That’s where I’ll stay.