heat

a poem about quiet defiance in a world that wants spectacle

Keep a little fire burning.
Not the kind people gather around.
Not the kind that asks for witnesses.

A small one.
Buried.
The kind you cup with your hands
and lie about
when asked.

It won’t warm the room.
It won’t save anyone.
That’s not its job.

Some days it’s barely there—
a heat you feel
only when you press too close,
like a bad thought you don’t correct.
Like the urge to stay
when leaving would be easier.

The world will try to upgrade it.
Make it useful.
Make it inspirational.
Let it burn down whole forests for a slogan.
Don’t listen.

This fire is for nights
when everything goes quiet
in the wrong way.
When the future feels like a closed door
and the past won’t stop knocking.

It’s what keeps you from becoming dirt.
From mistaking endurance for virtue
or numbness for peace.

You don’t feed it hope.
Hope is too clean.
You feed it scraps—
spite, curiosity, a half-remembered joy,
the refusal to disappear politely.

No one needs to see it.
Most wouldn’t recognize it anyway.
But when the dark leans in close
and asks what you think you’re doing—

you hold your hands together,
feel the heat answer,
and say nothing.

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