When the Darkness Comes Quietly

When the shadows press against my chest,
and my breath feels borrowed,
I remind myself:
I have been here before
and still, I rose.

Anxiety whispers,
depression lingers,
but neither has ever stolen
the quiet flame inside me.

I am not the storm,
I am the girl who survives it.
I am not the silence,
I am the breath that breaks it.

Even here, even now,
when the night feels endless,
I am still here,
still breathing,
still held by God.

And that is enough.

— Sela 🌙

what cheek, the audacity to sheer his name from his faceless appearance, well, I know something of names, and mysteriously common and vague,
said as often as ****,
does not satisfy this certified member
of the hoi polloi of humens

grace,

with a small g,
not to be confused with those courtiers in human courts
who so address their temporal superiors,
who more often than not,
chop off with their head,
just god
downy not longer
for being insufficiently lying
in their obsequiousness

grace is a virtue par excellence,
multi~facetedly faced,
reflecting well and goodness
on both the speaker and the hearing,
if grace you know not the meaning of,
then research it and let it
reflect back upon your countenance

replace god with grace,
and forgive me this too obvious rhyme,
it will only be better days
for the human race

><><
my name?
hah!
sinner man

my mom slipper
splintered floor mat

hand rusted, hovering
breaths rake the air

lean, bend, chase
shifted rooms, his question:
“who you think you are”

foot sinks
in lakes of red ashes

fog thickens
ashes remain

pillow strikes
blue soles pressed
decades deep

his shadow clings
a silent fling of ash

time drips
floorboards groan

hands tremble
bodies stagger

ashes whisper
fog swallows

I was suddenly struck with the idea that I didn’t feel anything. A certain loneliness had washed over me, and I could not talk, walk, speak, or even move of my own free will. Everything was now alarmingly still, and I could do nothing to escape it. Even the thoughts that crossed my mind were so painful to bear that I found myself trying to block them out.

Being in complete detachment from my own body, my old needs and desires seemed foolish and depraved. I did not want to see or have anything to do with the old things that brought me joy, for I could not understand, in this moment, what joy meant.

I found myself completely numb, and with that thought came another, even more surprising: that I had to stay in this unbearable situation. More torturous would have been to try to escape this weird state of mind than to actually experience it.
And I began to wonder: if I were to perish in this very instant, would I suffer — or, in the strange stillness of this numbness, would I even recognize the weight of feeling anything at all?

A hotel room in Rome. In front of me, a young lady is standing. When I look into her eyes, I can see the darkest midnight sky, and the waves of her hair are like the champagne in the glass she is holding in her hand.