The Alchemy of the Lens

I. The Spark

It begins in the body, always—

a shiver under the ribs,

a pulse that arrives before thought.

It wants out,

wants shape,

wants to spill into the world.

You call it love when it reaches for beauty,

hate when it strikes at pain.

But beneath the names,

it’s the same current:

pure voltage,

restless and blind.

II. The First Fires

When you’re young, you let it run.

You call the burning “freedom.”

You mistake exhaustion for meaning.

Everything you touch glows,

then crumbles.

People, ideals, yourself—

all baptized in that heat.

And afterward, in the cooling dark,

you tell yourself the same lie:

that passion is purity.

That feeling everything

is the same as living deeply.

III. The Mirror of Smoke

Then one day the world grows quiet.

Ash drifts where your certainties used to stand.

You see your reflection in what’s been ruined—

and the pattern is familiar.

Every flame traced the shape of your hand.

Every collapse carried your signature.

You realize it was never the fire’s fault.

It was the aim.

It was you.

IV. The Discipline

You start to learn the slow work:

how to breathe before acting,

how to hold the lens steady.

Discipline stops being a cage

and becomes a craft.

You study yourself

the way a blacksmith studies heat—

patient, listening for the metal’s language.

The mind becomes the forge.

The will, the hammer.

Every choice a strike toward clarity.

V. The Refined Flame

Now, when the current rises,

you don’t drown in it.

You guide it.

Through focus,

through form.

Love still burns, but it illuminates.

Hate still flickers, but it reveals.

The lens no longer divides the two—

it shows their common source:

the need to connect,

the need to defend.

Both human. Both holy in their honesty.

VI. The Transmutation

With practice, the fire softens.

It stops fighting you.

You see how every passion,

disciplined, becomes creation.

How chaos, when seen clearly,

folds into pattern.

Choice becomes the philosopher’s stone—

every decision a transmutation

of raw emotion into lived reality.

And you begin to trust the process.

Even the misfires become teachers.

VII. The Lens and the Light

One night you hold the lens again.

The surface hums like a heartbeat.

You realize it was never separate from you.

The glass, the fire, the hand—

all one circuit.

You whisper to the current:

I know you now.

I will aim you true.

And for the first time,

the light that passes through

doesn’t blind or burn.

It simply shines.

Not as love.

Not as hate.

But as presence—

focused, alive, awake.