The Way

The air hums with something unnamed,

thick with the scent of warm earth and distant rain.

Somewhere, fireflies etch golden sentences into the dark,

a language only the wind can read.

Barefoot on the cooling ground,

I let the night pull me in,

its velvet hands pressing against my skin,

its breath tangled in my hair like an old song

I almost remember.

Time unravels in slow-motion echoes—

the hush of waves against the shore,

laughter skipping across still water,

the soft crackle of unseen things

moving beneath the tall grass.

Then—

a shift, like a held breath exhaling,

like the sky leaning closer.

Because not all things are meant to last,

but some moments are made to stay.

They settle in the bones,

weaving themselves into the rhythm of the heart,

quiet, steady, certain.

And long after the night sighs into morning,

after the fireflies dim and the air turns cool,

I will still feel the way the world held me—

just for a moment—

as if I belonged to it.