Held

At first, it was unbearable,

the hush after goodbye,

a silence so sharp

it carved through ordinary hours.

I stood there,

hands empty,

watching the air around me

refuse to soften.

But then,

a note found me.

Not grand, not glowing,

just a thread of sound

slipping into the cracks

where sorrow pooled.

It was not escape.

It was company.

Every chord leavened against me

like a friend who knows

not to speak,

only to sit beside you

until breathing feels possible again.

And here, the turning,

not in forgetting,

but in listening closer.

I learned the ache had rhythm,

a pulse hidden beneath its weight,

and when the song rose,

so did I,

not whole,

but carried.

What shielded me was never armor,

never the absence of pain.

It was resonance,

the way a melody

can gather what has shattered

and hum it back to life.

Now I walk with it,

grief and song braided together,

their edges softened

into something almost tender.

Not a cure,

not an ending,

but a sound

I can finally call

my own.