Ashes to Flame

When the Light Was Late

I waited for so long in shadowed rooms,
where silence stretched into endless corridors
and the air felt thick with stillness.
Some days, the clock seemed to forget its duty,
its hands refusing to move forward.
Hope, on those days, was paper-thin
fragile enough to tear with a breath,
and I wasn’t even sure it was real.

I whispered quiet prayers I didn’t believe,
held on when there was nothing left to grip.
I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t fearless
I was simply here.
Still breathing, still standing,
even as the whole world seemed to crack.

The light didn’t arrive with thunder,
no glorious sunrise tore the sky in two.
It came gently,
slipping in through broken blinds,
soft as a sigh, slow as forgiveness
and yet, it came.

Some would call it weak, or late.
But I call it mine.
Because not every dawn must shatter the dark
to prove it’s worth breaking through.