Still Here

Morning light creeps through the blinds
like a hesitant lover I didn't ask to stay.

I open them wider anyway.

Coffee brews in the silence I've learned to stop fighting.
Steam rises, fogs the window.
I watch it clear.

The city wakes outside my door.
I step back, let the noise in.

Rain finds the fire escape first.
I light a cigarette, feel the chill settle into my fingers like it belongs there.

Smoke wafts out into the rain.
I am still here.
Breathing.

Somehow that's the whole rebellion—
choosing to witness the steam, the rain, the city's slow return to itself.

Not healing.
Not forgiven.
Just present.
Just this.

 

--Vera

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Filed under: morning rituals, survival, small rebellions, grief and its aftermath, city life, solitude, the body remembering itself, poems and prose, winter light