Poem: Walk The Fire

Poem: Walk The Fire

Apr 16

Written By Marni Fraser

Walk the Fire

Walk with me through cinder—

or don’t come.

On nights like this

heat runs to the blood

and it doesn’t blanch.

I am not linen.

I am pumice—

hands etched

by abrasion.

Love was never meadow for me.

It rose from a red seam at the edge of night—

burning horizons

where breathing sears.

Three names live there.

Three constellations I will not unmoor.

All else receives measured warmth—

a perimeter,

a door unlatched once.

Oh my triad in flame—

not scripture,

not cathedral carrion—

but mathematics forged in ordeal,

impossible figures

fed by combustion.

Do not instruct me in divinity.

The cloistered man attempted it.

He left with silence in his mouth,

certainty clinging

like mildew.

Do not school me in rule.

A mark on paper reveals the soul’s sinew.

I have turned from beloved eyes

after seeing the machinery behind their light.

History is long.

My judgment is swift.

I have seen love burning at the rim of the world.

I keep only three against my breast.

The rest meet a boundary bright as fire.

They say: severe.

Inhospitable.

I have earned the right to remain unsoftened.

And yet some days, I cry.

To love without anesthesia.

To grieve frailty without kneeling.

To step away when cowardice calcifies the spine.

I cannot swallow it.

If tyranny darkens the air,

I will place my body between you and the blade—

not from tenderness,

but allegiance

to breath itself.

My boots on the ground.

Every living thing requires ignition.

Purity is rumor.

Clarity arrives charred.

The horizon burns.

Three lights endure—

my love,

my friend,

my blood.

I am seasoned.

I keep the fire.

M.C.F.

0216.2026