At the Turning

The year loosens
like a knot warmed by breath—
not broken,
not forgiven,
just finished with.

It releases me quietly,
the way night softens a room
without announcing itself.
No ceremony.
Just the easing
of what no longer needs to be held.

I don’t chase it to the door.
I stay where I am—
window open,
branches breathing,
the moon hanging half-formed
and perfectly sufficient.

She does not rush to be whole.
Neither do I.

I have learned the weight of staying alive.
The small, daily courage of it.
How to keep going
with love folded close to the chest,
hands still capable of gentleness.

Tonight,
I set some of it down.

Not the love.
Never the love.

Only the fear that told me
I had to be harder to protect it,
the vigilance that mistook tension for devotion,
the belief that survival was all I was allowed.

What remains is warm.
Anchored.
The quiet gravity of bodies asleep nearby,
of laughter stored in the walls,
of a future already seeded
in ordinary, faithful days.

The new year does not arrive blazing.
It stands beside me,
patient,
familiar,
asking nothing
but that I keep showing up
as I am.

So I step forward
without vows,
without spectacle,
carrying what matters—
love that does not falter,
hope that does not hurry,
a life that is already underway.

Not reborn.
Not redeemed.

Returned—
to my body,
to my children’s names spoken softly in the dark,
to the steady, unremarkable miracle
of continuing.