The Coals Ain't Cold

A lament in the key of love—from the long road of learning to love, and the obstinate refusal to stop singing while love still burns beneath the ash of a life becoming.

Sing the song, they say.
No one can sing it
just the way you do.

And I did.
God, I did.

I used to think
the worst thing that could happen
was the clean, sharp wound
of nasty, cruel rejection.
A slammed door.
A sneer.
Heretic.

Then there were seasons
I thought the real danger
was wild popularity—
the strange fever of being seen,
faces turned toward you,
lights and cameras,
media buzz,
the quiet seduction
of being needed
for something you don’t have to give.

But now I wonder
if the worst thing
is not hatred
and not hype,

but singing your heart out,
offering your most beautiful song,
and hearing nothing—
not even snark,
just ambivalence.

To be lost
in a sea of frenetic noise,
in the churn of hype,
the long shadow of the hip and the loud,
the hot take,
the polished brand,
the curated rage.

What if the song is true
and still
no one leans in?

What if love is not in fashion?
What if gentleness has missed its moment?

What if I am singing now
in the register of irrelevance,
while revenge and division
have become the cultural key?

What if the world prefers
its prophets market-tested,
its wonder sanitized, sterilized,
its mystery sorted and shelved?

Here, in this billabong
of calcified ideas,
this intellectual greenhouse
of managed thought,
these tidy subdivisions of pseudo-inclusivity,
where the streets are named
Conformity, Certainty, Control.

What’s the use?

Why not move on
with a smile and a nod
to the good old days?
No shame.
We had a good run… didn’t we?

Not battered,
not worn thin,
not ruined.

Just tired.
Just friggin tired.

And yet—

I remember the kiss.

The kiss
that turned my life right side up.
The kiss that did not flatter me
but found me.
The kiss that undid
my not-so-small arrangements with despair.

The kiss that showed me
love was not a theory,
not a slogan,
not a performance—
but fire in the belly,
bread for the road,
a hand at the back
when the night was long
and the wind just wouldn’t quit.

I remember
the ridiculous, radiant promises
I made to you then.
The love-sick vows.
The wild sincerity of them.

How I said yes
with my whole unguarded heart.
How I meant it.

How, in some buried way,
I still mean it.

So here I am.

Not trendy.
Not sleek.
Not sexy enough for the algorithm.
Not mean enough for the moment.
Not polished enough
for the keepers of cool.

Sure, tired
and a little weathered.

But that kiss.

That kiss still burns
under the ash of my exhaustion.

But that kiss—
still there,
under it all.

The coals ain’t cold.
Love’s long fire
refuses to go out.

So I will sing.
I will keep singing.

Crazy, creative love.
Relentless love.

The kind that does not dominate
but does not disappear.
The kind that does not coerce
but does not quit.
The kind that keeps showing up
with dirt on its boots
and mercy on its lips.

I will sing
even if my voice shakes
(and it does).

Even if the room thins out.
Even if the clever ones smirk.
Even if the age has no ear for it.

Even if all I have left
is one cracked note
of hallelujah.

I will sing
if only for an audience of one.

And maybe that has always
been the truest place
to sing from anyway.

So—

is there anybody out there?
Is there anybody in there?

Maybe.
Maybe not.

Still, I will sing.

Because I have been kissed by love
too deep to deny,
too stubborn to silence,
too relentless
to let me go.

Where, beneath the ash of your own life, might the coals still be warm?

Sola Caritas,

𝞃Michael

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