Poetry: Judgements

I love you

Do you?

How can you say that

When you hate yourself?

Hmm, apparently you misheard the past tense

I had evolved by then

Past hatred

To a mere dislike

Even that has passed now

But your judgements remain

Self-loathing can beget love

Who better to recognize it

A heart that cannot love itself

Craves that same

Seeks it out

As a balm to a burn

Loneliness and misery

Search for something brighter

A dim flame

One to nurture carefully

Building it up

Slowly

Gently

Knowing that a slow flame endures

But, tended improperly

Will rage up

The flames licking the sky

Until the fuel is nothing but charcoal

And the flame has died

The pain yearns to be erased

To burn away

Yet it can withstand the conflagration

Still found among the charcoal

Though it cannot endure the long flame

Steadily burning

Until that misery

Has buried beneath the ash

Of that steady fire

Carefully tended

Intent to endure