Dum spiro, spero

Written by an anonymous guest writer. Edited by Chuma Chinzila.

We were a fire, a force to be reckoned with, a light that owned the dark. But you took your torch and wandered away, leaving me to sit by the heat of what we used to be. I watched the bonfire of our life dwindle. The flames shrinking into the wood until all that remained of us was a a white thread of smoke, the only proof that there was a fire.

I sat there in the silence as I watched you disappear into the dark. My hands trembled, my body cold as ice as the cold and shadows reached for me. I was alone, longing for you.

But then, I leaned in to stroke the embers and stretched my arm to touch the white thread. I breathed in the gray dust, refusing to let the last spark die. I fed the fire with my own spirit because you were gone. Alas, my hands trembled no more as I found my own strength and lit my own fire from that white thread of smoke. It isn’t the bonfire you left, but the fire i ignited from the embers; it is mine. It warms our five children, and it lights my path. You are out there in the dark you chose, but here, in the fire I salvaged, the cold can no longer touch me.