I open the archive
and light spills out—
years folded like dresses
kept for a weather
that never came
Some images loosen themselves
without argument
a hand on a shoulder,
a room I no longer enter,
the proof of who I survived
I keep what still breathes
what does not echo elsewhere—
the unrepeatable angle of morning,
a face before it learned defense,
a season that taught me my name
Deletion becomes mercy
not forgetting, not denial,
instead lifting the weight of witnesses
who have already finished
telling me what they know
The sky clears inside the machine
and I stand unburdened
carrying only what still sings,
as dawn does—
having passed through night without dragging it along