What the Silence Carried

I have loved like windows love the morning- quietly, without asking to be noticed, just hoping someone would open them. There were nights when the moon knew more about me than anyone ever would- how I curled inward, folding grief into origami birds, sending them across invisible winds toward the edge of forgetting. I have lost things I never held- names, chances, whole lives that might've been mine in another version of the world. And yet I still dream in color. There is a longing that does not shout but lingers in doorways -in the way I hesitate before saying I'm Fine It builds altars out of absence and worships with quiet hands. But healing, it does not arrive like spring. It comes with the slow thaw of winter- a drip, a pause, another drip. Some days, I am the storm. Others, the shore that survives it. I have learned to carry my name without apology, to wear my scars as punctuation marks- not endings, but proof that the story moved forward. And if I ever forget who I am, let me return to the silence- not to disappear, but to listen to the heartbeat beneath the noise.