Here I Offer Myself to Flame

(a hymn from the Book of the Crossroads)

Here I go.
I offer thee
my humble share of combustion—
a handful of heat,
the ember of my soul.

Now—
here I am:
fire.

My poetry,
my passion,
the ache of exile,
the splinters of longing
born of thy absence—
all I place
upon the pyre.

Let it burn.
Let it rise
as smoke that seeks thy breath.
Let it blaze
until there is nothing left of “me”
but flame
calling thy name.