AFTER

Dreams don’t shatter like glass;

they crumble like old paper,

soft at the edges,

fading where your fingers pressed too hard.

The heart does not break clean.

It bruises, it pulses,

it forgets how to beat in rhythm.

You cry. Not once, but often.

In checkout lines, hands full of milk and mourning,

when a song you forgot teaches your lungs to ache again.

Let it.

Let it crack you open.

Don’t wear calm like armor.

Don’t flinch when the ache calls your name.

It’s part of it

the leaving, the learning, the becoming.

Write it down.

All of it.

Even the ugly stuff.

Especially the ugly stuff.

Talk to someone who won’t try to fix you.

Hold someone’s hand. Or your own.

Whatever’s available.

Mourn the things that didn’t get to grow

the tiny hopes, the Sunday mornings,

the weird inside jokes.

You are allowed to miss them.

You’re allowed to hate them, too.

Healing isn’t a staircase.

It’s a forest trail—muddy, overgrown,

beautiful in a way you only notice

when you stop trying to outrun it.

Some days you will laugh.

Some days you will want to call them.

Some days you won’t even think about them.

That’s all part of the stitch.

And slowly—without permission or ceremony

you’ll begin again.

Not the same, but real.