I built a lantern from my breath,
fed it with hours,
with hands blistered from holding light too long.
It burned, faithful,
casting shadows that bent always toward you.

I planted gardens in a drought,
poured rivers into soil
that never once turned its face to the sky.
Still, the seeds broke in me,
roots winding around the silence of your name.

I spoke to the mountain
ten times, a hundred
each word climbing until it fell,
tired,
into valleys where no answer stirred.

And yet
my heart refuses to retreat.
It is a pilgrim without map or mercy,
kneeling before closed gates,
convinced that one day
a door will breathe open.

The ache is its own country,
and I am its last citizen
unwilling to abandon
the ruins I tended
as if they were a cathedral.