The Forge

The iron was cold once,
soft under the hands of time,
a shape unmade, undefined,
drifting in the quiet, bending in the wind.

Then the fire came.

Molten heat, searing truth,
the hammer of loss, the anvil of pain,
striking down with purpose, with force,
shaping, hardening, burning weakness away.

There was fear before the flame,
a pull toward comfort, toward shelter,
a wish to turn from the weight of the hammer,
to remain unchanged, untested.

But I did not step back.

I met the heat,
let the fire strip me bare,
let the hammer find its mark,
let the pain sculpt something unbreakable.

And now, forged in trial,
tempered by every mistake,
I do not bend. I do not yield.
I am steel where I was once clay.

Not because the fire was kind,
but because it was honest.
Not because the pain spared me,
but because it taught me what endures.

I speak of fire, of trial, of growth,
because I have stood in the forge,
and I know

A blade is not made in the cold.