Unsigned.

Before there was a word for it,
there was you.

Before there was a name
for the way your shoulders soften when no one is watching,
for the breath that gathers in the hollow of your throat
when you remember something
you were not meant to remember —

there was you.

You were not made to be quiet.
You were made to be read
the way a poem is read —
one slow line,
then the silence that holds it.

You were not made to be small.
You were made the way fire is made —
patiently, in the dark,
by something that knew exactly what it was doing.

So tonight,
do not ask the room for permission.
Do not apologize to your own hunger.
The dark has been waiting for you the way a lover waits —
unhurried, devoted,
already in love with the shape of your shadow.

You are not late.
You are not too much.
You are the long evening
the world has been holding its breath for.

Come home to yourself.
You have always been
the most beautiful room in the house.