a flame no wind could touch

I searched for light in the spaces you left behind— in empty chairs at dinner, in the silence that lingered after your name. I thought if I tried hard enough, if I gave enough, I could bring it back— the warmth, the glow, the feeling of being whole. But the more I gave, the smaller I became, until I couldn’t tell if I was searching for you, or for the pieces of myself I had lost along the way. Then one night, when the silence grew too heavy to hold, it broke open. And in its stillness, I saw her— the girl I had forgotten, waiting through every heartbreak, every loss. She wasn’t asking to be saved, only to be seen— how she stood, quiet and steady, a flame no wind could touch. The light I was chasing was never yours to give. It had always been here, within her, within me, burning steadily through it all. I am the light I thought I had lost— not because I am unbroken, but because I have learned to hold the cracks and still shine.