I have watched the cities rise like candles in the rain. Stone by stone, name by name, they vanish all the same. And still the morning finds the glass. And still the birds return. For all the things the centuries take, the world continues on. I have seen a thousand loves mistaken for the end. I have seen the proudest hands reach out to hold again. There is sorrow in the living. There is beauty in it too. Every heart breaks toward the light in ways it never knew. And life fragile life how softly it insists. Even after grief, even after ruin, something in it lifts. I have walked through endless nights and still I believe this: to exist is not a burden only. It is also this. Time makes quiet scholars of us. Time makes mirrors kind. What once felt like a wound without end becomes a change in light. I do not envy mortal days. I only watch them bloom. How fiercely they become themselves with so little time to use. And life fragile life how softly it insists. Even after loss, even after silence, something in it sings. I have carried so much dark, and still I believe this: to endure is not the same as living but both can coexist. Perhaps the soul is not a prison. Perhaps it is a door. Perhaps the years were not just distance, but a way of learning more. And if the future comes more gently, I will not ask it why. It is enough to feel the air change and not turn from the light. I have lived a long, long time. Long enough to know the world is never finished. The heart is never through. And if one day the dark beside me is dark no more I think I would... I would make room for that too. Two.
