I used to think healing Would arrive dressed in white With clean hands And an answer I could keep But mostly it came In unfinished mornings A cup left warm A name I could say Without breaking A day that did not ask For proof That I had survived it I have been every version Of almost okay The brave face The locked jaw The joke at the wrong time The woman who leaves early The woman who stays too long The woman who says It’s nothing When it was never nothing At all But something in me Kept a match dry Kept a chair empty Kept the key turned halfway For the part of myself That was still outside Trying to come home These are the rooms we leave lit For the ones we used to be For the love that lost its language For the child inside the grief For the friend who keeps on smiling For the heart that would not quit We are all just finding our way back To rooms we leave lit Some people come back different Some never come back at all Some live inside a sentence You cannot finish saying Some goodbyes take years To put their coat on Some blessings hurt Before they know How to bless you And love is not always thunder Sometimes it is soup on the stove A message that says No need to answer A hand on the table Close enough to reach Sometimes hope Is not a sunrise Sometimes it is one small bulb Refusing the dark Without making a speech So let the lost ones Keep their names Let the tired ones Put down the weather Let the strong ones Fall apart Let the lonely ones Be seen together These are the rooms we leave lit For the ones we used to be For the love that lost its language For the child inside the grief For the friend who keeps on smiling For the heart that would not quit We are all just finding our way back To rooms we leave lit I don’t need every wound To become wisdom I don’t need every loss To earn its place Some things were just painful Some years were just heavy Some doors closed And no lesson came But I am still here With my hands open Not empty Open And that is enough For tonight These are the rooms we leave lit For the ones we used to be For the names we stopped repeating For the homes we had to leave For the days we barely made it For the nights we won’t forget For the love still moving through us Though it hasn’t found us yet These are the rooms we leave lit When the road gets hard to see When the past is at the doorway When the future will not speak Leave a candle Leave a window Leave the silence room to sit We are all just finding our way back To rooms we leave lit If you come home late If you come home changed If you come home carrying What you cannot explain There is still a light There is still a place There is still a room That remembers your name
