Guide Me Forward

The dark is heavy,

a thick, weighted ash,

folding the world into silent planes.

-

I walk blind,

hands reaching into the void,

until the faintest pulse appears:

A lantern,

small as a baby's breath,

but refusing to die.

-

It sways in the strained breath of the wind,

teeth biting into my exposed skin,

the lantern flickering like a heart,

barely shielded by thin glass panes,

yet it holds in place.

Step by step,

I follow its tremor.

-

Around me, the road is shattering,

stones gape like never-closing wounds,

but the lantern says only:

Follow me forward.

-

Every shadow leans closer,

whispers of turning back into the darkness,

but the flame pulls me closer,

a thread of gold through the thickest smoke.

-

I don't know who lit it,

or if it waits for me alone,

but in its glow I see

my own hands, scarred and open,

my own breath in the cold,

rising like a prayer.

-

I walk toward it still,

feet raw,

lungs burning,

and when I can reach it,

I will carry it inside me.

A lesson that light is not absence of darkness,

but a defiance of it.

-

A lantern held in bone and blood,

guiding what remains of my will,

into the calm of dawn.