Becoming
When they vanished, the air became lucid.
no longer thick with the residue of pretense.
Their absence was not an emptiness,
but a reclamation of atmosphere,
a space for my own pulse to unfurl its rhythm.
I no longer contort my spirit
to fit the fragile architecture of their comfort.
I no longer dilute my convictions
to keep the illusion of calm intact.
Now I rise, deliberate and unshaken,
to defend what my soul deems sacred.
integrity, tenderness, truth.
The world glows differently now.
New souls orbit my life
with warmth that feels like art.
their laughter a kind of holy light,
their kindness, a cathedral with open doors.
It is astonishing,
how radiance returns when poison departs.
how the heart, once silenced,
learns again to speak in symphonies.
I am no longer fleeing the ache.
I am sculpting it into something luminous,
and every breath I take whispers:
I am becoming. I am free.
