Found in the Dark

I spent years

turning my face upward,

searching for light

as if it were something external —

a door opening,

a hand reaching back for me,

a sudden clearing in the sky.

I thought healing would arrive loudly,

with explanations,

with proof.

I thought it would feel like being saved.

Instead, it came quietly.

It came when I stopped running from the dark

and sat down beside it.

When I let it speak in its own language —

slow, patient,

uninterested in spectacle.

The dark was not empty.

It was dense with things I had survived.

With memories still breathing.

With questions that did not need answers

to remain alive.

I learned that darkness is not the absence of light,

but a place where light rests

until it is ready.

Somewhere between grief and acceptance,

between what broke and what stayed,

I felt it —

a warmth without direction,

a glow without source.

Not something to follow.

Something to carry.

Now, when the night returns,

I do not argue with it.

I let it close around me

like a familiar room.

And in that quiet,

I remember:

I am not searching anymore.

I am already holding

what I once believed

was missing.