Molting Season

Forgive me

I wore a quiet face too long

I learned the warmth of rooms that dulled me

let my edges soften into something welcome

let my wings sleep beneath a borrowed outline

that never fit

They came close without seeing

called it closeness

named me in shapes I could not hold

Still

I stayed

There is a silence that gathers

when something waits to become itself

I carried it in my chest

a low patient weight

like wings remembering the sky

without moving

Tonight it stirs

It begins to unravel, quiet, without resistance

The skin gives way

where it was never meant to stay

Threads fall from me

like quiet confessions

I do not reach to stop them

What emerges is not new

Only revealed

Darkness unmuted

form unbroken

a presence that does not bend

to be received

I feel the air differently now

as if it recognizes me

Do not come close

if you are searching for something softened

There is no version of me here

that will fold into your comfort

Only this

wings drawn wide

feathers catching what little light remains

a shape that no longer asks

to be understood

And in this stillness

I hear it

not the absence of others

but the quiet arrival

of what was always meant

to find me

I was never hidden

only held back

Now

I am seen