how the light returns

I learned to breathe again in the silence after goodbye— not the kind that slams doors, but the kind that leaves echoes in every room I walk through. Love left me twice: once in a whisper, once in a scream. One chose to leave, the other was taken by a storm I couldn’t see coming. I carried both losses like stones in my chest, trying to name the weight without collapsing under it. Some days, healing looked like getting out of bed. Other days, it was letting the tears fall without apology. I stitched myself together with small things: sunlight on my skin, a song that didn’t hurt, a friend who stayed when I had no words. I stopped asking why and started asking how— how to live with the ache, how to honor what was, how to let joy in without guilt. And slowly, the light returned. Not all at once, but in flickers— like stars learning to trust the night again.