Flame’s Heart, Inhabited by a Tear

There was a flame,

radiating countless lights,

countless flickering sparks.

She danced, leapt, and swayed without hesitation;

She was exquisitely sensitive,

boldly expressive,

unapologetically creative.

She was ever-changing:

sometimes like water, flowing and soft;

sometimes like wind, free and unrestrained;

sometimes stubborn, solid as a rock;

sometimes grounded, finding meaning in the simplest of things.

She loved to gaze intently at her own blazing heart,

leaping, lively, inventive,

full of desire, burning, passionate,

overflowing, giving, ever-lasting.

She delighted in exploring its boundaries,

connecting,

merging,

creating,

experiencing;

She ignited herself,

and sparked the restlessness of other flames.

She warmed the world with her flame,

carrying love;

and sometimes, she was playful and mischievous,

burning a random stray blade of grass with a sly little grin.

Yet, as she ventured deeper into her own heart,

beyond the profound love and beauty,

she saw darkness:

pain, collapse, anger, insecurity, loss of control, fear.

All of this stretched like a vast black hole

in the corner of her heart.

Suddenly,

the flame realized she could no longer burn freely,

for at the core of that dark void

dwelt a single, crying tear.

The flame saw the tear,

hesitated, unsure how to hold her.

She seemed foreign,

though the flame often cried,

visits of tears coming every few days.

She cried at the sight of a sprouting sapling;

She cried when embraced by the wind;

She cried at moments of farewell with loved ones;

She cried in joy and delight;

She cried when witnessing wounded beings;

She cried when confirming her own brilliance and beauty.

She did not fear these tears.

She saw them fully,

and embraced them deeply,

because she knew

that tears of joy,

tears of parting,

tears for the gentle, tender heart within,

were,

at their root,

simply another form of love.

She recognized, embraced, and trusted these tears,

because these were the beauty and tenderness the flame’s heart recognized.

Yet why,

when faced with tears of hurt,

did she feel so afraid?

The laws of nature tell it: water and fire cannot coexist.

Water extinguishes fire; fire evaporates water.

This is the most intuitive way we understand conflict.

Water can nurture gently, or it can flood and overwhelm;

Fire can be warm, or it can scorch and destroy.

The anger was fire, burning endlessly;

The tear was water, quietly merging into a river that swelled within her.

The fire feared water would extinguish its strength,

The water feared fire would evaporate its existence.

They clashed,

raging with equal force.

Anger burned, tears surged, colliding,

and the flame feared losing control,

feared hurting others,

yet also feared venturing into that deep, unseen corner.

All of this,

overwhelmed her with chaos and pain.

She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go.

All she could do was burn with every ounce of herself,

hiding her pain within the fire,

pushing others away with the blaze,

and guarding the deepest, most fragile tear at her core.

She burned, and burned,

even love and beauty caught in the flames.

The once tender and passionate sparks,

turned wild, monstrous, unrecognizable.

At that moment,

the flame was just defense,

and the tear was the true core.

Fire and water,

two forces that seem unable to coexist:

always constraining each other,

always opposed.

But could they truly not exist together?

Conflict is not always the answer.

Water restrains fire,

fire restrains water;

they balance each other,

yet they can also nourish and complete one another.

The cycle of life depends on this interplay of yin and yang.

The true challenge is not keeping fire and water apart forever,

but seeing tears in the flame,and feeling the flame in the tears.

One day,

the flame endured the most excruciating moment of her life.

It was a pain of body and soul:

piercing, bone-deep,

like a thick needle stabbing without hesitation into the softest place;

a tearing, desperate cry for help,

an inescapable agony, each second stretched endlessly,

cold sweat dripping,

limbs tense yet numb,

every breath heavy with dread,

fearing that the next one might hurt even more.

Yet there was no choice,

only to face it and endure.

After struggling for what felt like an eternity,

she finally sank into a deep sleep.

In her sleep,

she held herself tightly and warmly,

arms wrapped around her own body,

feeling the gentle pressure of skin against skin,

the subtle warmth of her own pulse.

Every inhale was a small miracle,

each breath filling her lungs with air that tasted like safety and hope.

She felt the rise and fall of her chest,

the beating of her heart,

the trembling of muscles finally allowed to release.

In this intimate embrace, she was finally present with herself,

with every sensation,

every sigh,

every pulse.

When she woke up,

her world had quietly shifted.

Things that once caused anxiety, torment, sleepless nights,

now felt light like grains of sand,

gently blown away by the wind.

She still felt joy, anger, sorrow, and delight,

but the heart’s measure was now clear, decisive:

what was worth investing in,

what was not worth the effort.

This was a choice.

Then,

she decided to slowly walk into the depths of her own heart,

each step heavy with hesitation and uncertainty,

because this was a path she had to take alone;

no one could walk it with her.

She knew that only by facing the darkness,

by truly coexisting with it,

could she ever experience the light.

True love and light were not blind, superficial, or effortless;

they arise from seeing, embracing, and understanding,

even the shadows within herself.

She feared the dark,

feared seeing her own brokenness, her unbearable shadows.

The journey felt like navigating a forest beneath layers of night,

filled with sharpness, chaos, thorns,

and countless inner disturbances:

shame, guilt, anger, loneliness, despair, self-loathing, anxiety,

and the restless pull of emptiness within her.

With each layer passed,

she felt as if she shed a layer of skin.

She almost turned back.

She almost wished to incinerate the pain with roaring flames,

to protect herself, her fragility, and her ego.

Yet she kept moving forward…

When she crossed the final veil of mist,

what appeared was not destruction or darkness.

But a small, lonely, abandoned, desperate flame,

curled up inside a transparent tear,

fragile, helpless,

yet struggling to burn.

The little flame had no power to protect herself,

but she did her utmost to guard this vulnerability, this pain, this softness.

The flame held her breath,

reached out with her flaming embrace,

and cradled the small flame against her chest.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” she whispered,

“You’ve done so well.”

The little flame nestled close,

“You are here. That’s enough.”

It was as if she had found a long-lost home.

The two flames embraced within the tears,

firelight mingling with the water’s glow,

tears and flames neither destroying nor erasing each other,

but truly seeing, understanding, and accepting one another.

She finally understood:

Crying and burning,

softness and intensity,

were never opposites,

they coexist.

Holding the tear within her,

she felt, for the first time,

whole, safe, and real.

She slowly withdrew her flame,

wiping away the tears that flowed from her heart,

feeling a deep sense of relief.

She realized she was no longer merely fire.

She was not an isolated being;

her heart contained the essence of all things:

Wind, gentle yet wild;

Earth, stable yet unyielding;

Wood, flexible yet determined;

Metal, shining yet sharp;

Water, nourishing yet unstoppable.

Every force in the world has duality.

She no longer needed to run from one side,

no longer needed to hide, suppress, or destroy another.

The answer was not outside, but deep within.

In facing herself courageously,

in tender awareness of each breath,

without trying to change or suppress,

simply seeing and acknowledging,

through introspection,

she understood and accepted every part of herself.

And in this way, she found her essence.

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