final red curtain

I was shaped by a lifetime of silence,
Wore a mask just to get through the day.
Now it cuts with a quiet defiance
That my image has fallen away.

Never thought I could break in this way—
On the edge, without sound, without warning.
Tearing soul from the body each day,
With no shelter, no right, and no mourning.

Never claimed any role to fulfill,
Wore no crown and held on without glory.
I would stumble, forgetting my will,
Never begged for a place in her story

She became something quiet and wide,
Like a silence that settles, then lingers.
Spring stood still in its turning aside,
As the cold reached the ends of my fingers.

No more fire, no comforting light,
No pretending to seem any better.
Every breath in a city at night
Held her truth like an unopened letter.

With her kindness, she opened the space,
Built a bridge where no voice had been spoken.
In her golden and delicate grace,
She remained past the line that is broken.

It is cold past the edge of the flame,
Where the light becomes distant and narrow.
Like a river that stops with no name
At the place where her face cut the marrow.

Love is not in the closeness we keep,
But in staying when nothing is certain.
Even drowning, and buried too deep,
I can’t pull down the final red  curtain.