Still Here

I wake to trembling
The earth shakes somewhere I will never see
Somewhere a ceiling falls and someone was just sleeping

The bakery glows below me anyway
Bread rising like it doesn't know
The scent comes up through the floor and I let it

I trace the cracks above my head
Not new cracks
Just ones I've stopped pretending aren't there

The candle has been burning since before I slept
I didn't blow it out
I don't always do the math anymore

Still here
Still breathing in flour and smoke and morning
That's not nothing

I stand at the window like it's an argument I'm winning
Beauty and dread both have their hands on me
Both are real
Both ache the way only true things do

--Vera