The Light That Learned to Stay

The night unstitched its darker thread

And left me standing in the seam

I wore the smoke of who I was

Until it loosened from the dream

A hush arrived where thunder lived

The air remembered how to sing

I touched the place the old life ended

And felt a newer pulse begin

Not risen from a borrowed flame —

The ember learned my name

What darkness took, the morning keeps

I leave what I became

I begin in my own name

I am the hour after rain

Nothing I was will wear me now

I am the light that learned to stay

The dark untaught me how to fall

Then gave the sky my weight

I keep the fire, I leave the ash

I open — I awake

Dawn did not ask if I was ready

It simply opened like a door

I walked the length of my own shadow

And found it shorter than before

The river long held in silence

Began to speak in thawed-out tones

I learned the weight of living forward

In a body I had never known

Not risen from a borrowed flame —

The ember learned my name

What darkness took, the morning keeps

I walk into the day

I begin in my own name

I am the hour after rain

Nothing I was will wear me now

I am the light that learned to stay

No borrowed flame, no second skin

The morning speaks my shape

I keep the fire, I leave the ash

I open — I awake

If I am ruin, I am seed

If I am smoke, I am the air

The cost became the opening

The ending learned to care

I do not climb the life I lost

I stand in one I made

Say rebirth if the word will hold —

I only know I stayed

I begin in my own name

I am the hour after rain

Nothing I was will wear me now

I am the light that learned to stay

No borrowed flame, no second skin

The morning speaks my shape

I keep the fire, I leave the ash

I open — I awake

I begin in my own name

I am the light that learned to stay

I begin in my own name...

I awake...