TIMELESS REFLECTIONS BY ZOEY

Some doors do not slam. They close like dusk quiet, gradual until one day, you find yourself on the wrong side, and the cold begins to settle in.

For months, I lingered in that hallway.
Watching. Waiting.Whispering to wood, wondering if it still remembered the sound of my voice.

And then, when I had stopped waiting when my hands no longer reached, when I had tucked the ache into quiet corners of prayer 

The door creaked.

Not open. Not inviting.
Just enough for air to shift.
Just enough to know that someone still moved on the other side.

Eight months is not brief. It is long enough for questions to root into bone.

Long enough for hope to unravel thread by thread.
Long enough to forget what their name felt like in your own mouth.

And yet here we are.
The door did not swing. No warmth or answers.  Just a sound. A trace. A breath from behind a wall I had already buried.

And  for the first time i did not know what i was supposed to feel my thoughts scattered how could i be double guessing?
Whether to lean in. Or turn my back. Or do nothing at all.

People speak of time as though it heals.
But time also bruises.
Quietly. Slowly. Long before it ever begins to mend.

I had learned how to survive without sound.
To walk without echo.
To breathe without expecting answers.

Now the silence has cracked. Not a melody just a single note. Not a downpour only one drop.
Still, it echoes.

Because it came from the voice I once begged the skies to hear mine. So what does one do when a door opens, just barely?

You do not run.
You do not erase what came before.

You pause.
You inhale.
You listen.

And then, you ask not if they remember, not if they still care 
but whether you still do.

Because the hallway gave me something I never expected:
Strength.
The silence gave me self respect. The wait bitter as it was taught me how to hold myself when no one else could.

A Thought to Keep
“Sometimes, the door we waited on for months opens too late to offer shelter but just in time to remind us of who we became while standing outside.”
— Timeless Reflections by Zoey