Departure

 I didn’t know I’d been living in the dark until today. It crept in quietly, became familiar—my normal, my reality. I didn’t notice when my world stopped turning, when my clock froze at thirteen. Everything inside me paused… but the world outside kept spinning, indifferent.

I didn’t know how to grieve what I couldn’t name. I didn’t know how to feel about what I couldn’t face. So I did the only thing I could—I kept moving, even when I wasn’t ever really going anywhere. Someone saw me. And in that fleeting moment, I remembered how to breathe.