Fighting what is,
I am undone, threads wound
Fragment, pain tears through somewhere.

Rising, hoping to face nothing but the light,
I try to bargain with my ancestors.
It’s hold-on, keep-going, fall-apart, hold-on,

Solve wholeness like a puzzle,
Scream and flail into exhaustion.
Only then, softly, is each piece mended.

Now, standing still,
Waiting for dawn to break,
I make peace with darkness,

At its heart the hidden colors,
Dormant but alive,
Allow and shape the haunted and disowned.

I learn to love them,
My broken pieces,
Before the rising sun.

I walk by my shadow,
Insist on it,
Warm and needy.

That is courage,
To hold out hands and welcome
This still, searching night.

It knows my name,
Hears my cries, sees my scars,
Enfolds me like a child in its arms.

I let go, helplessly falling,
Tenebrous now, tumbling through silence,
I, like latent color, shine unseen.

And suddenly sky bursts open
With nascent golden flame,
Lightly, I soar, become a shooting star.