The journal.
Exiled into a forgotten room,
With warm air thick as syrup, and time gathered in the corners.
A beam of light, full of dust suspended in the stillness, aimed its harsh, uncomfortable spotlight on the cover.
The journal was a gift from you, and full of you.
Now just an artifact of love, loss and torment, from a bygone era, too painful for my naked eyes.
This gift was given to me with intention,
By the hands that let me fall.
Today, I opened the window and allowed the room a breath, I too, drank the air as I opened the cover, revealing those brittle pages.
I gave them wings, as I gave you—
Not to free you, but to sever the last echo of my name in your flight.
The cover—soft, familiar, yet distant, and blank pages that gleamed with endless expanse.
New ink seeped deep into the paper’s marrow, twisting into roots that burrow and reshape the soil.
No longer a tether to memories of loss, sorrow, and humiliation.
But a vessel,
Repurposed for my expression, my stories, my breath.