There's this cafe I used to go to– I lived just down the road. With mismatched, gray and salmon tiles. For years, it felt like home. I left the suburb a while ago, thinking that it was best. The fence that borders our little home, surrounded by my ex. The yellow door that kept us safe, windows of painted glass. I walked through shattered glass.

The moon wasn’t dramatic that night. No omen. No silver prophecy hanging in the sky. Just there. Unbothered. Still doing its job. I remember thinking how unfair that felt. How everything in me was fraying and the moon kept showing up like nothing had changed. I was tired in a way sleep doesn’t touch. Not sad exactly. More… emptied out. Like I had carried meaning for so long my hands forgot what it felt like to be open. Giving up didn’t look like despair. It looked like efficiency. Like finally setting something heavy down and calling it wisdom. The moon said nothing. But it also didn’t turn away. It kept its distance. Didn’t rush me. Didn’t try to convince me of anything. Just stayed in its place quiet witness to a man learning how to disappear. I noticed how it reflected a light that wasn’t its own. How it didn’t apologize for that. Didn’t pretend to be the source. Didn’t disappear because it wasn’t enough. It simply received. And gave back what it could. That’s when it hit me. Maybe endurance isn’t loud. Maybe faith isn’t certainty. Maybe survival isn’t about finding the strength to shine but about staying positioned long enough to reflect what hasn’t left you yet. I didn’t feel rescued. I didn’t feel brave. But I stayed. And sometimes that’s the holiest act there is. Later, I’d remember these words, “The moon will not harm you by night.” (Psalm 121:6) Not because it explains anything. But because it names what I experienced. Protection doesn’t always feel like intervention. Sometimes it feels like being kept when nothing else is holding you. The moon didn’t save me. It didn’t have to. It just reminded me that even borrowed light is still light. And that night, it was enough.

SCENE ONE : THE MIRROR Shade had learned to avoid mirrors. Not because she disliked her face, but because mirrors remembered too much. That morning, however, she stood before one longer than usual. The room was quiet, wrapped in early light, yet her mind was restless. Her fingers hovered, then gently traced the scar that ran across her skin a silent witness to a past she never asked for....

Just a quick thing I had the seed thought for while I was driving home tonight. First poem proper I've written in a while, so I dunno how good it might be on a technical/structural level. --- In between my lives I go Upon the road, going to and fro Seeking that which brings my mind cessation I take on roles, I tick off tasks Each time exchanging different masks In pursuit of final abnegation And when I serve, I do it well For ne'er do my questions swell Save on the road to unknown destination 'Tis in no place, neither there nor yonder My voice arises, I'm forced to ponder Here in the haze 'twixt start and end, I've naught to do but take repose And feel the liminal blend of open road allow my doors of thought to close I exist only now. I forgot myself then. I will fade when this is done Till I'm on the road again

This is for the ones who are just starting, coming back or are in a moment where the blank page sits and waits: For the days the words don’t come. Sit with silence like an old friend. Start ugly. Begin broken. Finish gently. Let it go. And when the world asks what you made... say only this: “I made a way back to myself"