No one sees me
crossing the bridges within myself,
a city whose lights
go out all at once.
I gather what is left of me
from the edges of a drifting day,
set my tired heart in order
like a table abandoned
after careless guests.
“I’m fine,” I say.
The mirror says nothing,
yet returns a face
I do not quite recognize.
I begin again
to learn silence.
I write my name,
then erase it,
afraid of how easily
I might belong to it.
Sometimes I sit beside my soul.
We grow quiet together,
listening
to a small, stubborn pulse
that refuses to yield.
It says:
you are not lost,
you have not arrived.
I postpone my tears,
as I always do,
as if sorrow were a promise
I am not ready to keep.
My solitude finds me
like an old companion
on winter nights,
not chosen,
but known.
And still, something in me burns:
a small, defiant flame
that will not go out.
It whispers,
not yet,
but not forever.
To be lost
is not the end of the story.
It is the unwritten beginning.
I hide my weakness
in the fabric of an ordinary day,
wear a strength
that is not mine,
yet holds.
I speak with the night:
argue once,
befriend it twice.
It is the only witness
that never asks why.
I take pity on my heart,
a child worn thin by crying,
and tell it:
hush now, this will pass.
And in the far reach of exhaustion,
where no voice can follow,
something opens,
a chrysanthemum
breaking through stone.
I know this now:
to feel lost
is not an ending,
but a difficult road
teaching me how to arrive.
And I will arrive,
not because the path is kind,
but because I can no longer bear
the weight of wandering.