🖤 Act II

🖤 The Soft Return

There’s a stillness that follows destruction —

the kind that tastes like smoke and silence.

You don’t realize how long you’ve been gone

until your body starts craving warmth again.

You move carefully now.

Every step feels like trespassing in a life you once knew.

The mirror doesn’t frighten you anymore —

but it doesn’t forgive you either.

There’s a hunger beneath your skin,

a pulse that hums, not yet, but soon.

It’s softer this time —

not desperate, not wild —

just a slow ache asking to be seen.

Healing isn’t gentle;

it’s crawling back through the ashes

and realizing the fire didn’t destroy you —

it remade you.

And as the light touches what’s left,

you remember:

this isn’t a return to who you were.

It’s the first breath

of who you’re becoming.