The Vessel

A Poem for the ones who hold the storm instead of unleashing it.

Wendi Kehn/Hellbloom Haven (Also featured on Substack & Medium)

Dec 31, 2025

The Vessel

I do not cast my fire wide,
I hold it burning deep inside.
It climbs my chest, it shakes my frame,
But I refuse to throw the flame.

I let it crack, I let it rise,
It doesn’t steal the light from my eyes.
I stand my ground, I do not fall
The storm may howl, but I hold it all.

No wrath escapes to scar the air,
I keep my soul from turning there.
I won’t become what made me break,
I will not give what I won’t take.

I pray instead of striking back,
Though shadows press and light goes slack.
I hold the weight, I feel it move,
Until my breath begins to soothe.

I am the forge, not just the fire,
I shape the heat into something higher.
I do not scream to be set free
The storm transforms inside of me.

Behind the Poem

This poem was born from the fire, not the kind that destroys, but the kind that refines.

For much of my life, I’ve been met with chaos, pain, betrayal, and loss. But instead of letting those experiences twist me into someone unrecognizable, I made a conscious choice: I would hold the fire, not become it. I would learn how to sit with the storm, not to be overtaken, but to transmute.

Poetry is my way of staying soft in a world that often demands hardness.
It’s my way of honoring what hurts without letting it harden me.
It’s my prayer, my protest, and my promise to myself that I will not become the very things that tried to break me.

I don’t write from a place of having it all figured out.
I write because I feel it all deeply. Because I’m still becoming.
And because in those moments when I want to give up,
I choose, again and again, to stay, to feel, and to rise over and over.

The Vessel is not just a poem, it’s a reflection of that inner refusal.
To let life turn me cruel.
To let trauma become my identity.
To let other people’s wounds define my worth.

Instead, I became a vessel. A channel. A container for light, truth, and healing, even when it shakes, even when it aches.

If you see yourself in these words, in the fire, in the stillness, in the rising, know that you are not alone.

Thank you for reading.
For more poems like this, visit the Poetry Portal 
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With love,
Wendi Kehn
Hellbloom Haven