Finding Myself

I am finding myself again in the pavement under my feet and 7-Eleven coffees after work,

library nights and wearing out sneakers on two-mile walks in the cold,

old habits find their way back quickly like life was on pause, hibernating for years while I burrowed into you, burying parts of my identity to make space for us

invisible compromises dig themselves out from graves six feet deep

and I take inventory again

of who I am and what I want and where I'm going,

of all the things I used to know and all the things I learned,

of who I am without restraints I couldn't see until the shackles came off in your absence