Shedding Season

I spent everything left
to become something I wasn't built for.

New skin doesn't come with instructions.
It comes with silence, with strangeness,
with the feeling of wearing someone else's coat.

Time moves like it's punishing me.
The rooms rearrange themselves
and I keep relearning where I am.

Pieces of me drift like October leaves
off the maple outside my window.
I watch them without grief this time.

I gather what remains.
Not all of it. Just what still fits.

In this space I've made, something settles.
Not peace, exactly.
More like the radiator tapping at 3 a.m.
and me deciding it's not a threat.
Just the building, breathing.
Just me, breathing back.

--Vera