Monologue with self

Why do I walk this frostbitten path alone,

when the light above is timid, and the air hangs heavy with silence?

The light is not for seeing,

but for knowing. The silence itself is a teacher,

if I dare to listen.

But what is there to learn when all I encounter is absence?

Shadows press upon me like unanswered prayers,

and my heart shivers with doubt.

Absence is the mirror of presence,

and doubt the anvil upon which my soul is forged.

Do I seek comfort, or do I seek the truth?

I seek the truth, yet it terrifies me,

for it asks me to surrender

all that I have held, all that I have been.

Is it better to live in ignorance,

or to embrace the wound and let it teach me?

If I embrace it, if I let it rend me,

what becomes of me? Will I rise, or dissolve

into the cold wind that whispers through these empty halls?

I will rise only as fire rises within ice,

and dissolve only as a shadow dissolves in light.

Both are necessary; both are holy; both are mine to endure.

And yet, I fear. I fear the dark, the silence, the absence.

I fear that no answer awaits me,

that I am destined only to wander,

to question, to bleed in solitude.

Fear is the companion of awakening.

I will not curse it. I will not flee it.

I must ask, always ask,

and let my own heart supply the answer

even when the heavens remain mute.