Shifting Slowly

She has survived her own death a thousand times.
Each one left her thinner. Quieter.
Harder to find.

Hope once gathered in her —
a small, steady light.
It imagined a heartbeat beyond her own.
It ended in blood.
Where a future might have stood,
there was absence.

She chose blood over creed.
The decision cost her an audience.
She stood alone afterward,
ankle-deep in shame she did not fully believe
but carried anyway.

Suffering did not arrive loudly.
It settled.
It learned her hours.
It spoke most clearly at night.

Old narratives returned —
dutiful, familiar.
She recognized them this time.
Swallowed them whole.

There were nights she studied the edge
with unsettling calm.
Measured the distance.
Considered silence as a solution.

And still —
something in her leaned toward life.

At the intersection of fear and try again,
a younger voice surfaced —
clear, unbroken,
certain of light.

She does not dismiss it.
She does not fully trust it either.

But when the world grows too loud, she slips back into the old version of herself —

apprehensive, bruised,
watchful, guarded,
moving carefully through her own days.

She is not lost.
But she is still
finding the way back
to herself.