Defiance

There will be no falling.

No absent slip of the heart,

No tumbling into oblivion —

Not ever again.

This time, it will be deliberate.

A path carved by steady hands,

A vow spoken beneath my breath,

Sworn to the quiet rhythm of my own heart,

And to the woman I have forged

Through the slow fire of becoming.

For falling is the act of the unready—

An untempered hunger,

A surrender to illusion,

An unwillingness to grow.

It is to hand the universe your pain

And call it fate.

But self-love—

That has been the fiercest devotion.

The scars that once ached like open skies

Have softened beneath the tenderness of my own touch.

What I once begged another to save

I have stitched back together with grace.

Through ruin, I have remembered myself.

Through stillness, I have become whole.

This, then, is defiance—

To rise with both feet on solid ground,

To love from fullness, not need.

For I am my own salvation.

And if another half should meet me,

Let it be through choice,

Through clarity,

Through the quiet miracle of two flames walking side by side.

For I am whole now.

My heart is not a thing to be taken,

But to be met—

To be learned in time,

And earned through devotion that does not waver.