open dyslexic mode

At first,
it gave me shape,
this mending, adjusting, reassembling.
To rise from the ache
into silence that others could bear.
And why not?
It had its pleasure.
To wake each morning with a task,
wearing the corners down
to make myself nearly reflect
what they needed to see.

But always a clause,
unsigned but obeyed.
A vow without words,
spoken somewhere beneath the speaking.
I was nearly good enough.
But morning unstitched it, as it always does.

Then something withdrew.
Not collapse. Not even breaking.
But the quiet loosening,
names worn soft into the weave.

Even direction lost its voice.
Just sitting.
And the strange weight
of silence
pressing in
like a sound that had always been there.
Had I ever
been quiet?

The listening came slow.
I didn’t like what I heard,
the off-key hum of fear,
grief without tether, without edge,
long-forgotten arguments
still echoing in the floorboards.

But I stayed.
No changing it.
Just hearing it,
the way stone holds weather.

And then
something without name
unfolded itself.
Not peace.
Not even its outline.
Only the knowing
that listening required no listener.
And beneath the soft decay of scaffolding,
a kind of dark cadence
that had waited without expectation.

Now I wait without gesture.
And what is left
makes no sound,
bears no shape,
but remains.

#darknessretreat #listening #receiving