The Darkening

The darkening of the shadows,

Light dancing through a crack,

Silent cries that rattle,

Her soul confined in that shack.

One, two, three, four.

Five, six, seven, eight.

Every line carved in the floor

Seemed to seal her fate.

Her heart escaped before her skin,

Her breath pulled long and hard,

Her bones pressed thin as paper,

Still, she never dropped her guard.

The fight was always in her,

A quiet, burning shout.

She knew one day she’d make it,

And now her story thunders out.

The walls remember whispers,

The splinters know her name,

The dust still holds the echo

Of every swallowed shame.

But wood cannot contain her,

And locks cannot define

The wildness in her marrow,

The fire beneath her spine.

She learned the language of silence,

The mathematics of fear,

Counting cracks and counting breaths

Just to make it through each year.

Yet even in the smallest dark

Where hope seemed torn apart,

A stubborn spark kept flickering

Inside her paper heart.

And when the door swung open wide;

Or maybe she broke it through;

The light did not just find her.

She stepped into it too.

Now shadows shrink behind her,

No longer sharp with doubt.

The girl who counted on the floor

Is the woman walking out.