There’s a sound the air makes
when it stops needing to hold its breath.
It’s softer than forgiveness,
heavier than silence—
a kind of peace that doesn’t ask to be earned.

I find it between half-unpacked boxes,
in the hum of the heater,
in the way my daughter laughs from the next room
as if the world never broke at all.

Love still lives here,
but it’s changed its name.
It doesn’t ache the same way—
it settles,
like light through gauze,
like tea cooling in a cup I forgot I made.

Grief isn’t sharp anymore.
It sits with me quietly,
folding laundry,
passing the pegs one by one
as if it always belonged here.

I think this is what relief feels like—
not freedom,
but space.
The room finally big enough
to hold everything that’s left.

And somewhere under the hush,
beneath all this gentle unmaking,
she stirs—
ash still soft against her skin,
feathers stiff with memory.
Each wing heavy with what she’s carried,
the scent of smoke still clinging
to the hollow of her throat.

She doesn’t rise this time.
She stretches.
Bones creak, air shifts—
a faint shimmer where light meets skin—
and for the first time in a long while,
the movement isn’t about flight.
It’s about feeling the wind again.