I have walked through years
that wanted me smaller,
through rooms where truth
was something whispered
and love wore a careful disguise.
I learned to hold my heart
like a match against the wind,
shielding its fragile flame
with both hands,
afraid of who might see it burn.
Then you came—not like thunder,
not like some answer from above,
but steady as the morning,
with patient eyes
and an open hand.
You never asked me to become
someone easier to understand.
You only asked me to stay,
to set down the weight
I had mistaken for strength.
Now I am forty-three,
and the woman in the mirror
does not look away.
She has lines beside her eyes
from laughing in the kitchen,
silver beginning at her temples,
and a wedding ring that says
she finally chose her own life.
Let the old fears turn to smoke.
Let the locked doors rust shut
behind us.
We have built something here
from every word they used against us,
from every night we wondered
if the world would ever make room.
Our love is not a rebellion,
though it has survived like one.
It is coffee before sunrise,
your coat beside mine,
your sleeping hand reaching for me.
It is ordinary.
It is astonishing.
And if the past should call my name,
I will answer without turning back:
I am still here.
I am still hers.
And from everything that tried
to burn us down,
we made a home.
© Susie Stiles-Wolf