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Fire and water—sworn enemies, they say.
One devours, the other drowns.
One turns bones to dust,
the other drags them down to sleep beneath the tide.

And yet—
those who have kissed both tell the same story.
A burning, a breaking,
a body betraying itself in the same cruel way.

Did you know the flames never have to touch you?
That the smoke will steal your breath long before the fire does?
It creeps in like the tide,
fills the lungs, makes the world spin—
until the darkness swallows you whole.

And how different is drowning, really?
Water does not rage like fire, but it is patient.
It slides into the same spaces,
turns breath into something foreign,
makes lungs a grave before the body even knows it is dying.

So tell me—how opposite can they be,
if they take you just the same?

Perhaps the world is not made of binaries,
not dark and light, not fire and flood,
not love and hate, not you and me.
Perhaps every opposite is only a mirror,
just another way to meet the same end.

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