by Hayley Russell
Morning arrives like forgiveness,
slow, reluctant,
soft around the edges.
I wake to the thin seam of light
slipping beneath the curtain,
a reminder that even closed spaces
find their own ways to breathe.
Some days,
I am all heaviness,
a stone learning to speak.
Other days,
I am the window,
open just enough
to let warmth through.
Healing isn’t the rising.
It’s the returning
again and again
to the quiet place inside me
where the light breaks in,
even when I’m certain
it won’t.
Each time,
it finds me.
Even in the dark.
Especially then.