02/09/2026
The water is still, as if holding its breath.
A butterfly balances where certainty should sink.
Nothing rushes this moment.
Even the light feels careful.
That day didn’t arrive loudly.
It settled in, irreversible, quiet.
Everything after learned its shape from it.
Every before now points back.
I remember the way the world paused.
Not stopped—paused.
As if waiting for permission to continue.
Permission that never came.
The worst days don’t scream.
They glow softly and refuse to dim.
They teach the heart a new temperature.
One it never forgets.
I stand here now, watching the stillness.
Carrying that day without setting it down.
Some moments change the shoreline forever.
The water remembers where it broke.
— Tears of Memory