The Spark That Crawls Through Ruin

A reflection on the kind of strength we don’t talk about enough.

There are days when strength feels like a story we tell other people so they won’t worry.

Days when we don’t rise—we just continue.

Days when the world feels heavier than anything we have left to lift.

This poem came from a place like that.

Not despair.

Not hopelessness.

But that strange middle ground where you’re still breathing, still moving, still showing up…

yet you know something inside you is crawling, not running.

And maybe that’s okay.

The Spark That Crawls Through Ruin is about the part of us that survives despite everything, even when it doesn’t look heroic, even when it doesn’t feel strong. We often imagine resilience as loud, bright, triumphant—but most of the time it isn’t. Most of the time it’s a tiny spark, hidden under the ribs, glowing because it refuses to die.

That’s where this poem lives.

It speaks to:

• the fears we don’t confess

• the versions of ourselves we never got to become

• the weight of days that feel too long

• the small, stubborn flame that still refuses extinction

It’s not a poem about healing—not yet.

It’s a poem about continuing in the middle of the storm, before the light returns, before anything makes sense.

And yet, even inside the ruins, something burns.

Something that doesn’t ask permission from the darkness.

Something that doesn’t apologize for surviving.

Something that doesn’t need to shine—it only needs to exist.

If you’re carrying a spark like that right now, even a trembling one, even one that barely glows—

you are already doing more than you think.

You are still here.

And that matters.

Read the full poem and analysis tomorrow 15th: https://alkonda.com/2026/01/15/the-poem-of-the-day-95/

© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite