A Flicker in the Fog

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I write of light as if it’s mine to summon,

a switch to flick when the dark overstays.

But truth seeps in not loud, not violent,

just a slow and heavy knowing.

Something in me has lived beneath the weight

of joy postponed, of silence that doesn’t soothe.

Numbness has manners—

it lets me laugh, lets me run, lets me drink

just enough to forget

that I’ve been walking in circles for years.

Only now, in the stillness of almost-sobriety,

do I see how far I’ve fallen.

Not in flames, but in quiet resignation.

Baz asks what’s wrong.

How do you say: everything and nothing?

The spark is there sometimes—

a glimmer of potential in the rubble.

But mostly, the days feel like paper:

thin, folding too easily,

burning too fast.

Running doesn’t save me.

Work doesn’t lift me.

And yet,

in twenty sober days I touched something

not joy, but air. And then, a drink.

Not to celebrate, but to remember

what it’s like to feel something.

Even if it costs me the clarity…

The clarity I fought so hard to earn.

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