Chasing the White Thread

Up ahead it’s white, a snow animal,  

fur stitched from the fabric of storms,  

backlit by a quiet I can’t touch.  

I’ve been running after you for years,  

every gasp a hunger I failed to name,  

every breath a question I swallowed whole.  

Did you know I’ve been untethering myself,  

unbraiding the ropes I thought were mine?  

What is freedom, if not the ache of  

losing what once weighed upon your shoulders,  

if not the ripping open of stone-bound lungs?  

I didn’t know hunger felt like falling,  

like water seeping away through cracks  

too small to see, yet wide enough to drown.  

You run, a streak against the paper sky,  

and I wonder if your steps wonder too,  

wonder if this trail ends in shadow or light.  

The road before you yawns into silence.  

It swallows edges like a thing grieving.  

But even orchids grow in the gaps of frost,  

their petals proof that breaking is also bloom.  

You vanish ahead, and I am still chasing,  

still believing distance can hold what hums.