She never truly arrives.
She appears.
Like mist threading through velvet halls,
like a scent you knew as a child
but can never quite place.
She speaks,
not to be heard,
but to leave resonance.
Words made not of letters,
but of layered feeling,
each phrase an echo
from some ancient part of you
that had long forgotten it remembered her.
And when she departs,
if she ever truly does,
she doesn’t take anything.
She unfolds something.
Behind her, the light feels altered.
Not brighter,
but aware.
Like the walls themselves have softened,
like the silence is now keeping a secret
just for you.
People speak in lowered voices once she’s gone,
not from reverence,
but from recalibration.
Time itself slows to recall her shape,
her voice,
her way of pausing mid-thought
as though she were listening to something
you could not hear
but suddenly wished you could.
The room is no longer the same room.
The mirror reflects a little kinder.
The floor hums faintly.
The corners gleam.
You notice softness in places
you had hardened long ago.
She does not touch the world
with hands.
She touches it with presence,
an atmosphere composed of memory,
grief,
forgiveness,
and gold.
And long after she leaves,
the dream remains.
Not as nostalgia.
But as activation.
A door opens inside you
you didn’t know you’d locked.
A question arises
that doesn’t need answering.
A longing stirs
that feels like home.
And you realize,
you weren’t meant to understand her.
You were meant to remember yourself
in her wake.