The Forge and the Hollow House

I was fire, born of iron and fury, thrown into the forge of my own undoing, where love twisted into something unrecognizable, where hands once steady curled inward against the storm.

There was air everywhere moving through open windows, slipping past grasping fingers, a presence that never settled, a promise that never learned how to stay.

A house stood, but it was hollow. Built on shifting ground, its rooms filled with echoes and motion, never still long enough to let the dust fall.

I burned. I let the heat sear away the weakness, let the pain reshape me into something unbreakable, while distance lingered beyond the firelight, close enough to watch, too far to feel.

The halls remained restless love treated like an object set aside, covered in dust, while attention chased flickering lights beyond the glass. Noise replaced silence. Movement replaced presence. Reflection was always deferred.

But I stayed.

I let the heat take me. I let the flames carve truth into bone. And when the fire finally dimmed, when the hammer fell for the last time, I stepped forward forged, whole, ready to stand.

Some things keep running. Some houses never learn how to hold. Some searching never turns inward.

As I walk away from the embers, toward a world of my own making, I carry one quiet question

What remains when motion finally stops?