I spent years
waiting for grief
to come roaring back through the door.
Instead it learned to sit beside me.
Never gone,
only softer now,
lingering like an old friend waiting across the table.
The years no longer howl
like they used to.
Light returns slowly,
through the kitchen windows,
laying gold across unwashed dishes
and half-watered plants.
Half-warm coffee.
Rain against the garden.
The cat asleep nearby.
My name resting safely in my own hands.
The light asks nothing of me.
There are still nights
where memory returns like weather,
slow thunder in the bones,
old wounds opening their tired mouths—
but it passes.
I no longer confuse peace with emptiness.
No one tells you,
how strange it feels
when your life finally stops hurting.
How silence itself
can make you weep.
Some wounds never vanish.
They simply loosen their grip.
The world grows around it.
Now the winters arrive gently.
Not as punishment—
just another season passing through.
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