There are places within me
the present does not reach.
Not out of lack, or out of longing,
but because some rooms are opened only once, by the exact hand that knows the latch.
I have loved again.
I love still.
What I have now is real, warm, chosen.
It is not lesser,
But different in its geography.
Once,
someone looked at me
as if they had always known where I was hidden.
As if my silence spoke fluently to theirs.
There was no translation needed.
No learning curve.
Just recognition.
It felt like standing before a mirror
that did not reflect my face,
but my depth.
That kind of seeing does not repeat itself.
It doesn’t ask to.
It comes only once,
It touches what it must,
and light dims when it goes.
I have learned the truth of certain paths when the road ends and you can go no further- you understand that
you cannot get there from here.
So you stop trying.
You make peace with where you are.
You live fully in the life you have built.
Still, on quiet nights,
I feel those rooms breathe.
Not with ache, but with echos
of memory.
And sometimes,
when the world is kind enough to be still, my story can be told.
Not to go back.
Not to replace what is
But to honor what was allowed to exist, to be warmed by the flame
briefly and completely,
It forever changed me.
