From Three Years, Three Reflections: Letters to the Quiet Shore, vol.1
Notes
I wrote Ash Beneath the Flame from the hush of memory, where love and regret drift together, close enough to touch. It speaks to that small, unquiet ache we carry — that itch that can never be scratched, the echoes of what was lost still moving somewhere beneath the skin. It is for the moments we replay, knowing they will never return; for the faces we reach for in dreams, and for the question that lingers gently in the smoke of all we’ve lived, loved and lost: Would you do it all again?
Part 1 of 3
For Jax, whose guiding light endures beyond all tides. Shine on, sweet rainbow. This is for you.
Ash Beneath the Flame
The days fall softer now
their edges worn and kind
what once was fire now glows beneath
the ash the years confined
There are faces time erased
but shadows still remain
I reach for what I cannot hold
to do it all again
The hands that built, the eyes that dreamed
lie still beneath the rain
their echoes hum in hollow rooms
where silence speaks your name
And in the dark, that quiet pull
the heart’s unending strain
it burns to touch what can’t return,
asking me, would you do it all again?
The glass is cracked, the frame is bent
the picture will not restore
I see us there, forever caught
before the closing door
No mercy in remembering
no solace in the flame
just every joy that tore the soul
and made it feel the same
And when the sky folds into sea
and night begins its reign
I ask the ghost that lives in me,
Tell me true, my friend
Would you do it all again?