You step into the haze,
where breath slows, where time unravels
like ink spilling into water,
dark and endless,
folding into itself,
becoming something deeper.
Above you, the sky stretches vast and trembling,
stitched with stars that flicker like candle flames,
hanging low, shimmering in hues
that do not belong to the waking world.
Too close. Too distant.
Like something reaching,
but never meant to be touched.
The wind moves through the pines,
whispering something just beyond words,
a message you do not speak,
but feel,
one that does not explain itself,
and never has to.
Black water ripples beneath your fingertips,
cold as absence, soft as silk,
lapping against the edges of reality.
It does not pull you under.
It does not beg you to stay.
It only stirs, remembering,
holding something of you in its depths.
You walk the empty cobblestone streets,
mist curling around your ankles,
the echoes of footsteps that are not your own
vanishing before you can hear them.
And through warm-lit windows, you see it.
A book with no title.
You have never touched it, never turned its pages,
but it lives inside you.
It is the scent of well-worn paper,
the weight of stories pressed into your bones,
the echo of every word
that has ever made a home in you.
And beside it,
a cup, waiting.
The shape of your hands already molded to its curve.
Heat ghosts the rim, flavour resting on the edge of memory,
something known, yet forgotten,
until the moment it touches your tongue.
You could live a lifetime here,
folding into the hush,
letting the wind wrap around you,
threading through your hair,
trailing along your skin
as if you have always belonged to it.
But the waking world stirs,
threading itself back into you.
It will take you soon.
It always does.
The mist unravels at your heels,
already dissolving.
The black water shivers,
but never reaches.
The pines murmur in the wind,
but their voices are not for you.
And somewhere, in a world
that almost was,
a door remains open,
but it does not wait.
-Lauren Jennifer Hale
The morning is crisp, the air hums with possibility.
My feet are steady, my breath is light.
The first steps feel effortless,
as if my body was made for this.
A thrill rises, this is what I love.
This moment,
before the weight settles in,
before my thoughts unravel into something deeper.
Right now, there is only movement,
only wind against my skin,
only the quiet promise
that today I will go farther than before.
And then, the miles stretch.
A shift.
My legs begin to ache,
the rhythm no longer as easy,
but I do not resist.
This is the threshold where comfort is left behind,
where effort becomes its own language.
The road narrows,
the trees grow taller,
the world closes in,
and so does my mind.
This is the part of the run where I begin to disappear.
The edges of who I was before this moment start to blur.
Every step strips something away,
expectation, doubt, fear.
There is no room for them here.
I am unmade,
and in the unmaking,
something ancient stirs.
Pain arrives like an old friend.
Not sudden, not cruel, just present.
A steady, aching whisper:
“I am here. What will you do with me?”
The suffering is not loud.
It is not sharp.
It is the slow breaking of a dam,
the water rising, the body resisting,
until resistance itself becomes the suffering.
So I let go.
I let go of the voice that says,
“You could stop.”
I let go of the thought that I was ever in control.
I surrender.
And in that surrender, I find truth.
The pain does not take.
It reveals.
It hands me what I need to see.
What I have been avoiding.
What I could not face
until my body was too exhausted to fight it.
This is why I am here.
Not for the finish line.
Not for the medal.
But for this reckoning.
I do not know what I will leave behind today,
only that something will be gone.
Something I no longer need.
The miles decide that for me.
The dirt swallows what is meant to be lost.
And when the end finally nears,
I do not feel triumphant.
The suffering has already passed,
the battle already fought,
and the finish line is just a line.
The race was never the test.
It was the reflection
of everything I was willing to give
long before today.
Because I would still run,
even if I could never race.
I would still push myself beyond reason,
beyond comfort,
beyond anything that ever felt easy.
Not for others.
Not for proof.
But for the knowing...
That I have been to the breaking point,
and I did not break.
That I have met myself in the rawest form,
and I did not turn away.
That I have suffered,
and in the suffering,
I have become.
Because it was never about the finish.
It was always about the becoming.
-Lauren Jennifer Hale
In the beginning
my anger was a wolf,
hot-blooded and cornered,
fire caught in a downpour.
It lived in my bones,
white knuckled, protective,
howling for justice that would never come.
I thought if I bit hard enough
I could keep the world from hurting me.
I grew teeth and used them
long after the threat was gone.
Then one day
I heard my mother’s voice
slip through my own mouth,
sharp and rancid,
and I saw where pain goes
when left to rot.
I cried,
faced the ugliest parts of myself,
and said,
“you were only trying to keep me safe.”
Then I let the anger rest.
Peace stepped in when I stopped
trying to make anyone understand,
when I let life teach its lessons
without my interference.
Some people will only ever see
from where they stand,
and that is their path, not mine.
This peace feels light,
like paddling on a still lake at sunrise,
crisp air, soft current,
content to just exist there.
My voice is softer.
My days stretch open.
I can see possibility again.
Anger taught me my edges.
Forgiveness taught me to see beyond them.
Control was never safety,
only tension.
Real safety is choosing to let go,
loosening the ropes,
trusting my own decisions.
I see my younger self now,
the wolf, the protector,
and whisper,
“you were always safe inside yourself.
It’s okay to have been angry.
It’s okay to have wanted justice.
But everyone learns their lessons
in their own language of pain.
You can stop translating.”
And as the rain pours down,
I lift my face to it,
letting it wash over me
without diminishing my fire.
-Lauren Jennifer Hale