The Body Keeps the Echo

I keep reaching for the girl she was before the world broke her open again.

The past returns in splinters, small enough to pierce but not to name.

I wait for the day her light comes home to her body again.

Her shadow walks beside her—thin as breath, loyal as an old stain;

memory keeps score in scars the world calls “inconvenient stories.”

I keep reaching for the girl she was before the world broke her open again.

Some days she moves through silence like a fault line learning how to bend;

other days, the slightest touch reminds her where the fractures remain.

I wait for the day her light comes home to her body again.

Hope is a blade she sharpens slowly, testing its edge against the wind;

she holds it close, a quiet promise carved from everything she overcame.

I keep reaching for the girl she was before the world broke her open again.

I watch her gather herself piece by piece, no longer asking if or when;

she rises from her own debris—unwitnessed, unpermissioned, unashamed.

I wait for the day her light comes home to her body again.

And though longing threads my ribs like wire drawn tight beneath the skin,

I still believe the body keeps the echo long enough to reclaim.

I keep reaching for the girl she was before the world broke her open again.

I wait for the day her light comes home to her body again.