Moth & Flame
I think i was born a moth.
not the pretty kind,
not the kind pinned beneath glass
with its wings spread open
for somebody else’s admiration.
the kind that lives in the dark.
the kind that mistakes survival
for a reason to keep flying.
the kind that has never known
the difference between warmth
and something that wants to watch it burn.
and then there was you.
all teeth and warmth,
all sharp edges and open wounds,
a little reckless,
a little ruined,
carrying your own fire
like you hadn’t realized
you could burn, too.
i came to you without a map.
without much left to call mine.
just a body that had learned
how to leave
before it could be left,
a heart with its doors nailed shut
and a bad habit of calling
every open window an exit.
you were never supposed to be home.
you were supposed to be another light
i circled until morning,
another beautiful mistake
i could blame on the dark.
but somewhere between
your laughter and your temper,
your hands and your hesitation,
the quiet hours
and the ugly ones,
i forgot i was supposed to leave.
⸻
there were nights
i hated how close the fire was.
how something so beautiful
could hurt so badly
without ever meaning to.
how love could sit beside me
in the same room as fear
and somehow make them both
feel like they belonged there.
we have never been gentle
with every part of ourselves.
we have been teeth.
we have been thunder.
we have been two stubborn things
trying to fit together
without admitting
we were afraid of breaking.
and god,
haven’t we broken things?
words thrown like stones.
silences stretched thin enough
to see straight through.
the kind of distance
that can grow between two people
without either of them moving.
sometimes i wonder
how many versions of us
we have buried
to get here.
the strangers.
the almosts.
the people who thought
love meant never being hurt,
never being wrong,
never having to learn
the language of another person’s wounds.
i mourn them sometimes.
but not enough to want them back.
because i have seen you
outside the golden hour,
outside the pretty photographs
and the easy declarations.
i have seen you human.
and you have seen me
when i was all shadow,
all sharp mouth and shaking hands,
when even i could not explain
what i needed
without turning it into
something i could survive alone.
still,
here we are.
one year of choosing,
one year of changing,
one year of discovering
that forever is not a place
you arrive at.
it is a thing
you build with your bare hands,
even when they are trembling.
⸻
i used to think
if i loved something enough,
i could make myself
small enough to keep it.
fold my wings.
swallow the smoke.
call the burning beautiful
so nobody would notice
what it was costing me.
but you have taught me
that devotion is not measured
by the damage you can endure.
a moth was never meant
to become ash
just to prove it loved the light.
and a flame,
no matter how fiercely it burns,
was never meant
to consume everything it touches.
so let me love you differently.
let me love you
with both feet on the ground,
with my wings still mine,
with enough honesty
to tell you when the heat hurts
and enough trust
to believe we can learn
to tend the fire together.
let me be the creature
that comes home to you,
not the one
that disappears inside you.
let me know your darkness
without mistaking it for danger.
let me hold your face
when the world has made you hard.
let me laugh with you
over things nobody else would understand.
let me learn every small,
unremarkable thing about you
that time will try to make ordinary.
the way you take up space.
the sounds you make when you’re tired.
the expressions you wear
before you realize you’re wearing them.
the person you are
when nobody is asking you
to be anything at all.
i want the ordinary, too.
the mornings that smell like sleep.
the stupid arguments.
the food we steal from each other’s plates.
the familiar weight of you beside me
when neither of us has anything
particularly beautiful to say.
i want a love that survives
the end of the song,
the closing credits,
the nights when the stars
refuse to do anything
but hang there.
i want to know you
when there is no poetry
left to make of us.
and i want to keep writing anyway.
⸻
one year ago,
i was a moth
circling a strange and dangerous light.
today,
i know the shape of your warmth.
i know that love is not the absence
of darkness.
it is the person beside you
when the dark arrives,
the hand that finds yours
without needing to make a promise
the universe itself could not keep.
i cannot swear
that we will never hurt.
i cannot promise
that the road ahead
will be kind to us.
i can only give you
the truth of this moment:
i am here.
not because i have forgotten
how to leave.
not because i believe
love should cost me myself.
not because you are perfect
or because i have mistaken
our story for a fairytale.
i am here
because i have seen the fire
on its brightest days
and its worst,
and i am still learning
how to love the hands
that tend it.
i am here
because somewhere along the way,
you stopped being a light
i was desperate to reach
and became a person
i wanted to know.
there is a difference.
a whole universe
of difference.
so, my love,
let the other moths
chase the moon.
let the stars keep their distance.
let the night be as endless
as it wants to be.
i have spent so long
mistaking the things
that could destroy me
for the things
that could make me whole.
but tonight,
i do not need to burn
to prove that i am alive.
tonight,
i get to be a moth
with all her wings intact.
tonight,
i get to rest beside the flame.
and tomorrow,
when the world goes dark again,
when the hours turn over
and another year begins
its slow, uncertain unfolding,
i will find my way back
to the warmth of you.
not as a sacrifice.
not as an offering.
but as myself.
still strange.
still learning.
still a little wild
around the edges.
still choosing you.
one year down,
and, my darling,
i have not run out of night
to find you in.
