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It is on my tongue—
a feeling
palatable,
aerodynamic transition,
palpable.

Redesigning for flight,
for movement through resistance,
for letting go of drag.

Whereas my muscles would tense up,
a few inches from the ground—
now I’ve learned that to clip one’s wings
is to stay anchored, be shackled down.

Not that being grounded
isn’t a form of comfort, safety, or security—
but there’s a shift that comes
from renegotiating the terms
you’ve set with your own mind.

It’s a daunting challenge,
yet a necessary one.

Because I want to see the world,
not from behind a pane of glass,
but with wind in my lungs
and wonder in my chest.

And I want to fall in love—
falling into bed with you,
multiple strings attached,
and still feel like the luckiest person alive.

To do that,
I am taking flight
in ways I could not have foreseen
as a child.
Written in chorus with the poets of HelloPoetry—this flight is ours.
The undertow, pulling me down beneath the surface of serenity.
Currents carrying me through quieted screams, muffled by liquid silence, blocking their airways.

Not my pain to feel, but the echoes of others’ washes over me all the same.

I inhabit their waters.
Sinking quietly.
In my chest carrying what they cannot voice.

Yet in that depth, I find a strange kind of strength…
To feel it all, to inhale the weight like water, and still not drown…
And oh, how I sink—
deeper still, drawn beneath the surface.
Tears gather like hidden tides,
alive in the weight of sharing your sorrow.

///

Credit to @Kalliope and @Rose Yet To Bloom for the inspiration.
  Jul 10 Alvin Montagnani
Charmour
"Death or
Freedom?
But you just
Said freedom
Twice."
Same thing..... isn't it!?
I tried to define us with words––what I thought you felt,
what I hoped we were.

But you told me,
more than once.
I just wasn’t ready to hear it.
I clung to the lines I’d written,
while your actions
kept rewriting the truth.

It wasn’t silence that hurt.
It wasn’t the echo of what you said finally sinking in––
It was not realizing sooner…
There is a house with no windows,
built of hours no one counted where the moon keeps its shoes by the door –
always ready, never resting.

Inside, a lantern burns without wick, kept alive by the hands of someone who forgot what their own name feels like when spoken aloud.

They move like wind in a locked room,
making space where none was offered,
balancing skies on their shoulders
like it’s just weather,
not weight.

Their footsteps don’t echo.
They’ve trained even the floorboards not to cry out.

Somewhere, outside the locked hush, another figure stands – also barefoot, also flickering – writing prayers in the form of poems into the dark with nothing but breath and hope
and the ache of recognition.

Not asking to be let in.
Just standing close enough
that the cold doesn’t win.

Because some people don’t knock.
They just stay.
In silence.
Like light does when no one’s watching.
Someday, somewhere, you’ll meet me standing at a crossroads. Not to lead you anywhere, but to walk beside you when you forget where you were going. No maps, no promises. Just presence. Just light that stays.

I’ll stay there – if only for a moment, that forgets how to end…
You are the sun,
I am your mirror.
I reflect your light
back to you.

Your rays touch me -
mine never reaches you.
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