Hold On

Some people walk into sadness

the way dusk enters a room —

without asking permission.

They let it pass through them

like weather through open windows.

I do not know how.

I run until my lungs run empty,

until my body forgets its name,

and it finds me —

beneath the practiced smile,

behind the masks I call kindness,

in the rooms I lock behind me —

even when all I want is to stop wanting.

Sorrow was the first thing

I learned to carry without dropping.

Still, I know the shape of it

better than I know my own skin.

I hold my sadness

like a coat I have worn too long —

frayed at the cuffs,

the lining gone thin,

heavy with old rain.

It does not keep me warm.

Maybe it never did.

What happens if I lay it down?

What if I unbutton each grief-worn sleeve

and underneath there is no one I recognize?

What if misery has been my truest language,

and I have mistaken fluency for home?

I am too comfortable being miserable.

It is a room with the curtains drawn,

a chair pulled close to the dark.

I know where the floor gives way.

I know which silences mean be still.

I know how to live here

without ever calling it life.

And yet —

some days the past forgets to tap my shoulder.

Some days the ache loosens its grip

and I do not know whether to call that mercy

or betrayal.

Even now, when I dream of another life,

I do not know what my hands would do

if they were finally empty.

Still, I can almost see it —

what waits beyond me,

what I have been dreaming toward:

a door at the end of a long hallway,

light spilling through the narrow seam,

gold as a promise I cannot yet believe.

But the voice inside me,

low and practiced,

says no.

Turn back.

This dimness is the only country

that will ever claim you.

I remain there —

one hand in the sleeve,

one hand lifted toward the light,

learning that wanting another life

is its own kind of reaching,

that even this pause,

this almost,

is proof I have not given up.