I stand at the border where the pavement blurs,
no longer searching for the girl who was a doorway.
I have walked the Hall of Parallax
and watched the monster dissolve into a shadow –
a trick of light, a keyhole view
mistaken for the whole horizon.
My suitcase is no longer packed with the wrong seasons.
I left it in the House of Unspoken Departures,
along with the metallic tang
of the truths I swallowed to keep the peace.
I am the one carrying the ticket now,
boarding a ship with a horizon
that finally feels like mine.
The city didn’t save me.
I protected myself.
I grew through the frost like a Winter Rose,
learning what I should have known all along:
I am perennial.
Behind me, the door clicks shut –
a clean punctuation mark.
Ahead, the Great Echo begins,
and for the first time in fifty‑four milestones,
the silence is spacious.
The radiance is mine.