The Cost of Independence
Because no matter how carefully I arrange the furniture of my independence, someone else always holds the key.
Because no matter how carefully I arrange the furniture of my independence, someone else always holds the key.
While some lives are ending, the rest of the world quietly goes on making plans—as though tomorrow has already agreed to arrive.
The night has held motherhood, fear, loss, and finally peace. A reflection on the changing meaning of darkness across a lifetime.
There are moments when another person’s pain reaches across the space between us and touches something familiar.
A smile. A passing comment. A joke shared across supermarket aisles. For a moment, we exist in each other’s day.
It isn’t always the extraordinary moments that make us long for someone beside us. Sometimes it’s simply wanting someone to remember the shape of our days.
A poem about waiting, uncertainty, and the quiet courage of continuing without knowing what comes next.
Hope is not believing that love will never hurt us again. It is choosing to remain open, even after it has.
A poem about what remains after certainty falls away – and the quiet decision to stay open, stay in relationship, and choose love anyway.
This poem was written as part of my Master’s thesis, Who’s Health Matters? It captures the essence of the chapter titled Summer and reflects themes of transition, hope, belonging, and the search for home.