Crow and Flame

They call me too much

like it’s a warning—

like I should gather myself into smaller bones,

clip my wings,

cup my fire until it forgets how to burn.

I’ve been studied across tables,

picked apart in soft-lit conversations.

“You’re naïve,” he said,

as if hope were a weakness,

as if surviving hadn’t taught me exactly what the world is—

and choosing light anyway wasn’t a rebellion.

I am not naïve.

I am defiant.

I have heard it in harsher voices too—

that I made a man feel small,

that my existence was a mirror he couldn’t stand to look into.

So he found softer reflections,

dimmer rooms,

quieter women.

And somehow,

that became my fault.

I have been told I am childish

for the way I collect pieces of the world—

trinkets, moments, obsessions, curiosities—

as if wonder has an expiration date,

as if awe is something we are meant to outgrow.

But I am part crow—

I gather what glints, what calls, what means something.

I do not apologize for what I keep.

And I am part flame—

I do not know how to exist without heat.

Without intensity.

Without devouring the things that spark my interest

until they become part of me.

They say I am too passionate,

too intense,

too alive in the things I love.

Yes.

I am.

I have walked through enough darkness

to know what it costs to go dim.

So I don’t.

I will not make myself quieter

so someone else can feel louder.

I will not shrink my dreams

so they fit inside someone else’s fear.

I will not soften my edges

to be easier to hold by hands that were never meant to carry me.

I am not too much—

I am fire in a world that learned to survive on smoke.

And yes—

there is one thing I fear.

Not the dark.

Not the unknown.

Not even the burn.

I fear the moment I betray myself—

the moment I choose to be less

just to be loved more.

That is a death I refuse.

So let them call me too much.

Let them flinch at the brightness,

misname it, misunderstand it,

walk away from it.

Crows do not beg to be kept.

Flames do not ask permission to burn.

I will gather.

I will burn.

I will remain.

Uncontained.

Unsoftened.

Unapologetic.