Rise

(Morning is dark, again, quiet, you slip into the routine without a thought: steep coffee, write out the remains of night dreams, meditate into sunrise over the mountain. Your light therapy lamp shines in the pre-dawn hours but once that desert sunlight breaches the summit, how any other light is superfluous. The cows huddle in the pasture ahead of you, their slow meanderings an appropriate representation of your state of mind. Everything is slow in morning, but peaceful, happy.

Did you ever think I could be happy again? Because I doubted. This house is littered with pictures of other versions of me, and in each one all I see is something broken behind every pair of eyes. I knew how to smile, yes, and I knew how to laugh in brief moments of respite, but the laughs always rattled hollow inside my rib cage. But the sun rises, again again the sun rises and god damn if you won't do the same. This little light of mine, whispers the lamp, I'm going to let it shine.

And for the first time, in a long time, you know just what it means.)