The Hidden Journal

It always comes when I stop looking.
Not as a sign or a miracle,
but as something smaller —
a breath, a pause,
a reminder that I never really lost it.

───

The light doesn’t rush.
It waits until I’m still enough to notice.
Until I’m done trying to earn it.
Until my shoulders drop
and my heart remembers how to open.

───

Some days it shows up as laughter.
Some days, it’s just the absence of ache.
But it’s always gentle.
Never forced.
Never loud.

───

When the light finds me,
it doesn’t ask where I’ve been.
It just says, You made it.
And somehow, that’s enough.

───

— Desiree