Open the window
"At most, I was a window briefly opened so the room could remember oxygen."
It felt like watching a man
step out of a room
he had been surviving in
by learning the dimensions of the walls.
The door was never locked.
Only heavy.
I stood elsewhere,
aware without claiming witness.
What moved him
was not my doing.
At most, I was a window
briefly opened
so the room could remember oxygen.
This knowledge brings no triumph.
Only a strange humility.
The kind that lowers the eyes
and steadies the hands.
Guilt presses its thumb
against the pulse of pride,
and both are real.
Both stay.
I know what it costs
to choose oneself late.
I know how endings
carry the smell of ash
even when they are necessary.
Nothing here is clean.
Nothing here is cruel.
I will not stand at the threshold
asking what this makes me.
I am not a verdict.
I am not a future.
I am simply a place
where his voice once sounded clearer
to himself.
I do not ask for a place in what comes next.
I am not the answer.
If I remain a corridor you once walked through,
let it be one with the windows.
Outside, the world continues
with its bureaucratic indifference.
Forms to fill.
Lives to maintain.
But somewhere between one breath and the next,
something essential has been acknowledged.
That is enough.
That has always been enough.
Try and look at anyone in your environment. Truly look. And if they need a little extra love today, or tomorrow, or the day after, be the one to give that to them. Utilise the kindness you carry in your heart.