The Clearing

There were days

you walked with your head down,

hands trembling,

carrying burdens you could not name.

People passed you

with opinions like lanterns,

pretending to see in the dark,

but never asking how you breathed through it.

You didn’t always know why you stayed,

or why you left,

or why your body kept aching

for some other life just beyond the trees.

But something in you —

older than pain,

quieter than reason —

kept going.

Kept gathering

each thread,

each scar,

each lesson dropped like breadcrumbs

from your own future self.

And then —

a break in the branches.

The hush of a clearing.

The long breath you forgot you were holding

finally exhaled.

The sky widened.

Your heart rose.

And when you turned around to look —

you saw it.

Every choice,

every fall,

every stubborn, sacred step

was never wasted.

You had to pass through that forest.

You had to kneel in that mud.

You had to go blind

so you could remember how to feel.

And now,

in the silence of that knowing,

a voice rises from within:

You know you did this so you could run.