The weight of knowing.

I do not choose the storm within,

nor the way the wind whispers secrets to me.

I see the pulse behind your smile,

the hesitation in your breath,

the shadows trailing your laughter.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

I taste the echoes of words unsaid,

syllables dying in the hollows of your throat.

Your silence is a language I cannot unhear,

your absence, a script I have memorized.

I read between your pauses,

where truth trembles, afraid to be known.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

I was born to see what others blink away,

to untangle the riddles of your shifting gaze,

to feel the ghosts in the space between heartbeats.

You call it overthinking—

I call it survival in a world that lies.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

Every glance you cast is a tide pulling me under,

every word a thread I must unwind.

You do not know the burden of knowing—

how heavy the air becomes

when filled with unspoken sorrow.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

I catch the flicker before the flame,

I hear the crack before the breaking,

I sense the goodbye in a lingering touch.

I am not searching for sadness—

it finds me, wrapped in your quiet departures.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

If I could unsee, unhear, unfeel,

I would trade this knowing for peace.

But the wind still hums its hymns,

and the air still trembles with hidden grief.

So I listen, so I bear it.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

Let me be, let me burn,

let me carry the weight of the world unseen.

I did not ask for this gift, this curse,

this endless unraveling of truth.

Yet here I stand, a flame that cannot flicker out.

Do not blame the fire for its heat.

©Bunguswa.™