Fireworks
We speak of permanenceas though it is the purest form of love.
Forever.Always.Till eternity.Never leaving.
But some things are beautifulbecause they do.
Every summer, London performs the same small miracle.For months we curse the rain,the early darkness,the grey sky that hangs over the city like tiredness.
Then suddenly, for a few weeks,everything softens a little.
Windows remain open longer.People laugh from across the street.The parks fill with bodies stretched toward the sunas if warmth itself had just now remembered us.
And because it ends,we love it.
If London were twenty-seven degrees forever,we would stop noticing the light on the buildings.We would stop arriving early to parks.We would stop calling our friends saying,“You need to come outside.”
The same is true of fireworks.
No one would gather for themif they lasted all night.
No child would point toward the sky in wonderif the explosions never ceased.The beauty lives in the vanishing.
In the brief permissionto stand still beneath something burning.
And yet,how often do we ruin ourselvestrying to turn fireworks into sunlight?
A short weekend becomes a future.A conversation becomes destiny.A version of someone, glimpsed briefly and beautifully,becomes impossible to release from memory.
We fall in love most recklesslywith things untouched by ordinary life.
Spontaneous romances.Holiday destinations we never had to survive in.People we never had to know completely.
We remember the feelingand forget the conditions that created it.
The delayed flights.The lack of sleep.The fact that one of you would probably become unbearable by month three.
The hotel room with no responsibilities.The three-day escape from ourselves.The person who remained radiantbecause they left before reality arrived.
And afterwards,we compare everything honestto something that only survivedbecause it ended early.
But not all love arrives like fireworks.
Some things glow quietly.Slowly.Without asking to be admired.
There are people who will never set the sky on fire for you,but will sit beside you through winterwithout making you feel difficult to love.
Places that do not overwhelm you at first glance,but slowly become home.
Lives that would look unimpressive from far away,yet fit your soul exactly.
I think we should be carefulnot to worship intensitysimply because it burns brightly.
Some things are not meant to last forever.That does not make them failures.Sometimes the endingis the very thing that completes them.
The fireworks end.The smoke disappears into the night.The crowd walks home quieter than before.
And somehow,that is what stays with us.
johnthegriot.com/poems/fireworks