Letters Unsent

Some letters are never meant to be sent.
They are a ritual, a reckoning,
a release.

There is something sacred
when pen meets paper—
the page absorbs
what the mouth can’t say.

I have journals lined in silence,

some pages no one will ever read,

some turned to fragments—

ripped, gathered,

kept in a glass vase,

like wildflowers

wilting in time.

Is it quieting my voice, or guarding the truth?
I want my words to heal—
to be light.
I know what the dark ones do.
Some stay lodged,
circling back on heavy nights.

So I write with intention.
To get lost.
To remember.

Letters across time,
across people.
One reads: I really thought we had more time…
Another: If I am too much,
and must be taken in pieces...

I don’t want to be your antibiotic.
I want to be your addiction.

Maybe that’s the only way I’ve known love—
urgent, all or nothing.
I know it’s flawed,
a cognitive distortion,
but it’s mine.
 

Some letters ask why.
Some beg to be rewritten.
Some earn the silence
they’re now buried in.

No, I haven’t kept them all—
only the ones that still breathe,
the ones I may one day
tell the truth to.

And the rest?
Ripped.
Released.
Unsent.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

THE COMPANION a monologue in rain.

Scene: A room without walls. Rain falls beyond the edge of everything. The air is heavy. The sky is fighting itself. A woman sits, watching. Another presence — the Companion — sits beside her, silent but near.

SELF
The rain has been falling for days.
The earth is saturated.

I feel saturated —
as if something ancient is beginning to rise from the soil,
something I buried long ago,
believing it would never return.

I sit and watch the rainfall.
I watch others.
And sometimes…
I watch myself —
interacting with others, with life, with the rainfall.

There’s a darkness beside me.
She hasn’t said a word.
But I feel her.

I get lost in the sound of raindrops,
in the light trying to break through clouds —
like the sky itself can’t decide
what it wants to feel.

COMPANION
You buried me.
But I never left.

SELF
I know.

COMPANION
Do you think of him often?

SELF
Yes.
(It doesn’t matter which him.)
They all haunt the same hall.

SELF (trying to deflect)
Why do you still come around?

COMPANION (laughs — a sound like something breaking and something remembered)
Because you’d never move toward the light
if I didn’t exist.

(Silence. Rain.)

NARRATION / STAGE DIRECTION
She does not comfort.
She does not destroy.

She simply is —
the weight that makes me crave flight,
the chill that teaches me to kindle fire.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Fallacies & Memories

 —a truth in fragments—

I write because it's the surface that absorbs my tears without judgment or question.

I write because it’s an addiction that lets me feel— instead of go numb.

I write because my mind is never quiet. I write to stop the hemorrhaging of my aching heart.

I write because the moon calls to me— and I must.

I write because I was only fifteen, and he should’ve known better.

I write because the logic of my life twists into fallacies, and nothing makes sense.

I write because I pray. I write to be misunderstood by most and understood by few.

I write to root myself— to breathe beneath the noise.

I write so I can get lost in something good.

I write because I remember. I write because… Mom, I really just needed to be held— just once.

I write because… sister, I cherish those memories of summer nights and fireflies.

I write because she built a ghost of what I said, then struck it down with fire and pride.

I write because you never touched the thought I gave, just tore the hand that held it out.

As if my name could soil the truth, or silence what the soul might shout.

I write because wisdom isn’t passed by titles— it’s carved by time and earned by light.

I write because you said I had to choose the edge— to burn or break, to win or die.

I write so I don’t burn it all down.

I write because…

I am.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Drenched in Presence

a devotion to rain

I love the rain in all her moods.
When lightning cracks open the sky—
I count the seconds,
wait for thunder’s roar to answer.

I love the boom, the shake of heaven,
the storm that says, I am here.

I love when it comes gentle,
a hush, a whisper,
barely more than a breath
against the cheek of the world.

I love when it weeps—
steady, aching,
as if the sky remembers something it lost
long ago.

And when it pours fierce—
drenching, cleansing,
pulling me into wild communion—
I stand there,
head tilted to the gray,
welcoming every drop.

Rain doesn’t ask.
It arrives as it is.
And I love her for that.
Every part of her.
Every softness, every storm.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Raised by Absence, Held by Light

Some words come from the child,
some from the woman she became.

They say daughters are easy to love when they’re quiet—
but what if you loved her even when she roared?

She is born wild with wonder.
Don’t tame her to be loved.
Love her, as she is—
always.

To love a daughter
is to hold her storms
without asking them to shrink.

Be her safe place.
Her harbor in the storm.
The world will teach its lessons—
your love should not be one of them.

Dad—
your choices
shaped the shadows
I had to walk through.

Creator,
thank you for being the face,
the name,
the role—
of father
while I walked that journey.
Thank you for never
leaving me alone.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Elm Park | 1988

It was an age when the world still felt like a secret waiting to be overheard.

Evening walks in the cool hush of New England air.
A boy at her side, his hand warm in hers,
but her mind wandered beyond their words—
drifting toward the trees, the hush of water beneath the bridges,
the architecture of old stones that remembered.

There was a building—
Ivy-cloaked, ancient, reverent.
It pulled at her from the inside,
something magnetic in its silence,
a calling she couldn’t yet name.
It stirred in her a kind of ache—not pain,
but the ache of being known by something
you haven’t met yet.

They would walk for hours like this,
his voice weaving in and out of her attention,
while her soul scanned the sky.
The sun setting behind cathedral spires,
the moon arriving like an old friend
who spoke a language only she could hear.

Even then,
she knew she loved the symmetry of dawn and dusk—
but it was the moon she worshipped.
Especially when full.
Especially when rising.
It whispered through her,
a quiet electricity
that would follow her all her life.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Monologue #7: The First Time I Met God

I don’t often write about God.
Not because I don’t feel Him—but because what I feel is too intimate, too sacred, to perform. My relationship with the Divine has never been for display. It has been personal, winding, and at times too fragile to name.

But a message found me. A fellow writer, a kindred spirit—I only know them by the name they chose to share, the rest was woven into their words. They told me my writing held a kind of honesty that stopped them, that it felt like truth they could touch. They said they recognized something familiar in my voice—something kindred. And that recognition stirred something deep in my spirit.

Because I believe souls do find each other. And I believe God, the universe, whatever language your soul speaks, orchestrates these meetings in ways we never fully understand. That message became a mirror, and I saw it was time. Time to tell this story.

The first time I met God officially, I was 18.
Pentecostal. Seeking. Trembling.
I gave my life to Him in a small church with loud music and louder praise. I was baptized, claimed, saved. And for what I needed then—structure, direction, a place to put my hope—it worked. For a time.

But I walked away. I came back. I wandered. I questioned.
I tried temples. I sat in cathedrals. I stood in the back rows of Catholic churches with my mother’s rituals on my tongue.

I looked for God in incense, in stained glass, in scripture. I looked in every space built by men to house the holy.

But I never found Him in the buildings.
I found Him in the quiet.
In the in-between.

And then, eventually, I found Him in me.

Over time—over years of praying, pleading, forgetting, and returning—I began to hear something softer than doctrine. In conversations with God, I felt a truth rise up like breath:

How can you separate yourself from Me?
I am with you. You are with Me.

It undid me.
Because I realized what I had been chasing wasn’t God’s love—not exactly.
I was chasing self-acceptance, safety, wholeness.
I wanted God to love me because I didn’t know how to love myself.

But the Divine is not separate. And the love I was searching for
was already embedded in me.

God is love. And love begins within.

It took time. Years of wandering and return, of forgetting and remembering—
to begin truly living this. Not perfectly. Not fully.
But with enough clarity to see—

It wasn’t about the structures or the rituals, though I once sought shelter there.
It was always drawing me inward— toward communion, not performance.

I share this not as teaching— but as a moment. A soul unfolding.

If you’re seeking, keep walking.
If you’re doubting, keep asking.
And if you’re aching—
know the ache itself is sacred.
It may whisper through stillness,
or in the kind words of a stranger.
To the soul who sent me that message—
thank you.
Your words were a divine appointment.
You reminded me:
Honesty matters.
Kindness matters.
Being seen matters.

So this is where I met God.

Not just once.

But again and again—

In the quiet.

In the questions.

In the reflection.

In me.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

What Her Hands Never Said

She didn’t say “I love you” in ways that stories like to write.
She argued. She stitched. She criticized. She sewed.

She made quilts out of the scraps of our childhood clothes—
Hands busy at the sewing machine.
Hands that taught me my creative blood runs deep.

We didn’t talk much, and when we did, it was sharp.
But now I see her more clearly.
In cardinals. In moths.
In my own mannerisms I didn't know were hers.
She still visits.

I don’t carry her in grief so much anymore.
I carry her in light.
In acts of service.
In the love that didn’t say itself,
but wrapped around us anyway.

A labor of love—stitched quietly,
like everything else she gave.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Tracing Her Shadow

She still comes close.
The version of me I once had to be.
Sometimes she arrives quietly—
just a shadow
pulling up a seat beside me.

I’m evolving,
but I don’t know where I am in it.
And maybe that’s the point—
becoming isn’t a path you measure.
It’s a presence you feel.

Still—
she lingers.

Maybe she needs to know
that she mattered too.
Even if I’ve outgrown her.
Even if I only trace her now in silhouette.
She kept me alive.

But now,
I’m living.
I’m learning what it means to meet life
not with armor,
but with arms open.

Still, one hand
reaches back—
not to stay,
but to say thank you.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

After The Storms

After heat.
After rain.
After everything felt too much.

The sky doesn’t explain itself.
It just returns.
In color. In balance. In stillness.

Inhale... exhale. Be grounded.

Be still. And know 

that after everything—

the heat, the ache,

the storm you didn’t ask for—

you don’t have to do anything.

Beauty returns anyway.

Stillness returns anyway.

Just stand in it.

Just see it.

And let that be enough.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Monologue #6: The Song of My Ribcage

I laughed. 

And in that laughter—deep, sudden, from the belly of me—I found freedom. Not the kind we fight for. The kind that was always there, waiting behind the illusion I had clung to like armor.

It hit me not with a crash, but with a giggle:
I was never in control.
And what a ridiculous, beautiful, tragic little story I had told myself for so long—that control was safety. That control meant I was doing something right.

But no.
Control was the cage.
And the key was my own surrender.

When I let it go—the anger, the tightness, the need to manage everyone’s everything—what filled the silence wasn’t fear.
It was laughter.
It was breath.
It was... me.

All of me.

The very core. Every shade. Every mood. Every sacred contradiction. Finally free to move, to speak, to play without apology.

I don’t yet know what my hands will create with this freedom. It’s too new, too pure. But I know they will create. Because creation is what happens when we’re no longer holding the world up with our teeth.

I’ve lived enough to appreciate this kind of knowing. I’ve suffered enough to recognize it when it arrives:
the peaceful, euphoric surrender into divine order.

It is not passivity.
It is not giving up.

It is trust.

That the road will turn where it must.
That I will know what to do when it does.
That I am not alone.
And I never was.

It is no longer I and God—like co-pilots.
It is God... and I.
The divine leads. I follow, free.

And when I wake in the morning, no longer carrying the weight of everyone’s happiness, no longer mistaking control for love, there is light in my chest.

And in that light, a song.

It’s not sacred hymn or polished prayer.
It’s messy, playful, and probably off-key.
Something like:
“These are a few of my favorite things...”

And I sing it.
Because no one’s watching.
And even if they were, it wouldn’t matter.

My ribcage is a cathedral.
My breath is the offering.
And laughter is the hymn that set me free.

And I’m not crying anymore.

I used to cry easily—hurt too easily.
Each tear a protest against a world I couldn’t shape.
Each ache tied to the belief that I could—or should—control the people, the moments, the outcomes.

But now, with all that released, the tears have shifted.

They will still come, I know.
But not from soul-deep suffering, not from the wounds I carved by holding too tightly.
Let the tears come now when I see beauty.
When I am moved.
When life is so achingly pure, it spills over.

For now, there is a smile.
A real one.
Not a mask.
But a smile rooted in the quiet knowing:

It is what it is.
And that is enough.

No, it won’t be perfect.
But I will take it moment to moment.
And may I keep laughing—every day—like freedom itself is echoing back through my ribs.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Monologue #5: The Release

I have been angry.

Not the loud kind. Not the firebrand rage that splits walls and scorches bridges. No. Mine was quieter, but no less consuming—a silent storm, coiling in my spine, whispering distractions into every corner of my days.

For three days, I floated, disconnected. I posted things that didn’t match -I mixed songs and most of it just off skew.... I said I was fine when I was unraveling. I danced the old dance—pleaser, appeaser, silent tiptoer in a world that never noticed the bruises blooming on my self-worth.

And then, clarity.

It didn’t arrive with trumpets. It came in a hush, like the universe cracked a window in my ribcage and let the truth drift in.

I am not in control.

Not of others. Not of outcomes. Not of the tangled ballet that life choreographs without my permission. I had clutched tightly to the reins of illusion, thinking I could steer the chaos if I just smiled hard enough, bent far enough, stayed small enough.

But no.

That was a lie.

And like all lies, it demanded my peace in payment.

So I let go.

Not with fury—but with softness. I handed my anger to the wind. I offered my need for control to the sky. I buried the burden at the universe’s feet, whispered: “You carry this. I’m done.”

And I chose me.

Not selfishly. Not recklessly. Just... honestly. Fully. Finally.

I will no longer fold myself into the shapes others find comfortable. I am not here to prop up the happiness of those who cannot tend to their own gardens. Their peace is not my business. Their chaos is not my responsibility.

I am not their mirror, their balm, their savior.

I am mine.

And in this choosing, I have no apology to give. I do not shrink from the surprise in their eyes. Let them adjust. I am adjusting, too—to the wild power of being true to myself.

I am light.
I am love.
I am protected.
I am hollow—so that I may be filled.
So I may be a vessel of purpose

So that I may be aligned with what seeks to flow through me

And this morning, late in the waking, I rose with peace stitched into the lining of my breath.

It is what it is.

And I am enough for it.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

The Sound of Walls

Anger is not fire.
It is the sound of walls
straining not to crack.

It arrives without a knock—
sometimes quiet as steam
pressing through the cracks
of a soul sealed too long.
Sometimes loud—
a slammed door,
a word flung too fast
to ever catch again.

We have been taught to cage it,
label it dangerous,
call it wrong before we ask:
Why has it come?

But anger is not a monster.
It is a signal.
A trembling voice that says:
"This mattered to me."
"I wanted control."
"I didn’t feel safe."

Feelings don’t know day from night.
They don’t sort themselves into good or bad.
They rise to say: You are still alive.
Still paying attention.
Still hoping.

This is not about rage
that wounds others.
This is about the ember that flickers
when you have held too much
and said too little.
The ache of being misunderstood
for too long.

Anger is the sound of self-respect
knocking from the inside,
asking to be heard
before it turns to flame.

So listen.
Ask it what it needs.
Not to manage it—
but to understand it,
to hold it long enough
that it softens
and tells you the truth.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Even in This Corner

I wasn’t praying tonight.

I was just sitting—
in that slow ache of sadness
that doesn’t belong to you
but still finds its way in.

The kind of melancholy
born from being near a weight
that was never yours to carry.

And I almost let it stay.

Old thoughts began their circle,
whispering stories
I’ve outgrown but sometimes still listen to.

And then—
it was interrupted.

Not loud. Not forceful.
Just a moment so pure,
so unexpected,
that it lifted me out of that spiral
without asking permission.

And I knew.

I knew that even in all this chaos,
even with all the souls in this world,
God saw me.

My Creator—who goes by many names,
wears many faces,
answers in the language we each understand—

looked in on me.

Not because I cried out.
Not because I earned it.

Just because I’m loved.

And that—
that is why I had to come here
and write this down before sleep.

Because in this small corner of the world,
with my small, momentary ache,
I was reminded:

I still matter.

And the love that created galaxies
still has time
to interrupt my sadness
with beauty.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

To Love, Wildly

Fall in love—
with reckless, radiant hands.
With the kind of kiss that dares
to alter your atoms.

Let your heart sprint barefoot
across moonlit streets,
chasing butterflies that speak
in the language of fingertips.

Let someone brush the hair
from your eyes
like they’re reading scripture.
Let their scent become your breath—
not perfume,
but that skin-deep memory
you can smell in dreams.

Taste the words that linger on their mouth,
sip the sound of their laughter.
Let your name on their tongue
sound like your favorite song
said softly in a storm.

Let your bodies speak
before your mouths do.
Let a single graze of skin
rewire your chemistry—
a brushfire beneath bone.

And when they look at you
and already know the thought
before it’s born,
love them harder.

Love them like it’s the first time
the world has ever known love.

Let your longing
start in your mind,
travel down your spine,
curl into your toes
until every part of you
aches for their arrival.

And when your eyes meet—

nothing else exists.
Time bows.
The noise hushes.

This is the kind of love
you don’t explain.
You just live it,
wildly.

Unapologetically.

The rest of life will teach you limits.
But this—
this is where you learn
how to fly.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Of Moonlight, Moth, and Flame

I caught a glimpse of the almost-full moon tonight.
She did not call with sound,
only with silver—
a curve of light, sharp as memory.

She looked back so deeply
it held me there,
my gaze lingering in her glow
as the skies dimmed into shades of midnight.

I turned away—
just a moment—
and when I looked again,
she was gone.

Not hidden,
but withheld.

I stepped forward, into the center of it all,
searching the sky.
The clouds had gathered,
closed the curtain on her stage.
I—I wasn’t done
with the slow burn of devotion,
my gaze fixed in a longing
only she could ignite.

The fire behind me rose—
a hush that crackled.
Sparks leapt skyward
like offerings flung from earth to ether.

I sat with it,
let it speak.
Fire always does.

Then, the moth came—
a winged hush,
a pulse of dusk
that landed soft against my skin.

I waited for a message,
a passing whisper from the moon.
But he just stayed,
still,
a silent flutter of being.

I lifted him gently,
placed him on a leaf nearby.
And when I turned
to reach for my brush—
he was gone too.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

When Lightning First Struck

I didn’t just lose someone.
I lost the story written in starlight,
scripted beneath a moonroof,
where silence held possibility.
You didn’t finish it.
And something holy was left—unspoken.

Guilt?
That belongs to you,
your gods,
and the long shadows of karma and murphy.
The reckoning wasn’t about love lost—
but about a love
that should never have been dreamt aloud.

You spoke of forever,
but you were already rehearsing the ending.
A prophecy you fed,
until it bloomed bitter and true.
I mistook your silence for mystery,
your distance for meaning.
You were a pause I turned into a sentence—
and I bled believing.

You took what I offered—
skin warm with trust,
laughter mid-breath,
vulnerability cupped like water.
But not the sanctuary of my soul.
That was never yours to hold.
It has always been guarded,
watched by those who do not sleep.

We unraveled, but the echo lingered
It pressed itself into my ribs.
Still—
I no longer chase sound.
I walk toward stillness.

You didn’t walk the story we began.
You veered off into safer woods.
And I?
I kept walking,
torchless, barefoot,
guided only by my own becoming.
Not blind—
but believing.
You were not the fire.
You were the flicker
that made me crave heat.

We weren’t friends.
We were lightning—immediate,
blinding,
unsustainable.
I had already carved a space
for forever.
But you weren’t built to stay.

My spirit never shattered.
It bowed,
learned,
rose wiser.
I can speak beautiful lies—
but I prefer the sharp edge
of truth.

I remember everything—
not to ache,
but to harvest the lesson.
The goodbye was mine,
because you never gave one.

And yes—
I searched for your obituary.
A part of me needed to see
if you meant it
when you said you’d die without me.
Turns out,
we both kept breathing.

I carried it.
I held it.
And now—
I let it fall like broken glass
from open palms—
cutting, glinting,
refusing to be anything
but what it is.

You were the first lightning strike.
But I am the storm now.
That’s the only truth
that still stands.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

To the One Who Asked About Love

A letter I didn’t know I needed to write.

You asked me
why I question lightning.

And I didn’t know how to answer
without unraveling.

I told you I’ve known
the 3AM kind—
the kind that burns
like worship
and withdrawal
at the same time.

I’ve known love
like a drug,
a high so dizzying
I forgot my own name
just to taste it again.

I’ve known the kind
that leaves teeth marks on memory,
that lives in the back of my throat,
in the pauses between songs
I can’t listen to anymore.

But you,
you spoke of love
as something still.
A presence,
not a pursuit.
A being,
not a bargain.

And I didn’t know what to say to that.
Because I have never loved
without gripping.
Without proving.
Without performing.

You said—
“just let it be an experience.”
Love,
in its purest form.
Not romance.
Not ache.
Not need dressed up in longing.

And I heard you.
I did.

But here’s the part
I didn’t say:

The absence of love—
or what I thought was love—
is frighteningly silent
and deafening
at the same time.

It’s withdrawal.
It’s walking through your own body
like an empty house
waiting for a knock
that may never come.

But maybe…
maybe that silence
is the place love lives
when it’s not screaming
for attention.

Maybe that’s where
the real kind waits.
The soft kind.
The kind that stays
without needing
a reason.

So yes—
I’m falling in love
with myself.
Slowly.
Without fireworks.
Without addiction.
Without needing to be rescued.

Maybe lightning does strike twice.
Or maybe it just learns
to come quietly
the second time.

But I’m listening now.
Not for thunder—
but for truth.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Monologue #4: The Ache of Being Seen

There is a part of me I’ve preserved—not out of authenticity, but out of loyalty. Not the noble kind, but the silent, complicated kind that grows in the shadow of family. Specifically, the side of my family that holds tightly to tradition, to status, to tangible markers of success. Half of me comes from that world. Half of me understands it, even when I don't belong to it.

It’s not a daily battle. I live my life, I walk my path. But somewhere inside, I still carry the hope that one day they’ll look at my life and say: Yes, that’s enough. Not because it aligns with my values, but because it fits their mold—success that can be touched, measured, praised. A big house. A name. A number. That strange, hollow currency of worth.

I know it’s superficial. I say that plainly. But it’s honest. And it’s mine—this strange ache for a kind of acceptance that I know wouldn’t fulfill me. Still, it lingers. Because I love them. Because I was shaped, in part, by them. Because to be accepted by those you value—on their terms—can feel like safety, even when it’s a cage.

I’ve played the scene in my mind a hundred ways. Their pride, their approval, matched to external success. Never to my joy. Never to my passion. Those things, they never quite knew what to do with. Their love is not absent. But their understanding is.

What kind of love is it that persists without understanding? I don’t know. Maybe it’s duty. Maybe it’s tradition. Love, in bloodlines, often comes with an unspoken contract: we are bound by history, by name, by proximity. And that is a kind of love. But the love I crave—the one that sustains and liberates—is made of recognition. It is the kind I’ve found in souls who are not kin by blood but by resonance. The kind that says: I see you. As you are. Without needing you to change to be enough.

And I’ve tried—God, I’ve tried—to explain myself. To translate. To bridge the gap. I gave up eventually, maybe out of exhaustion, maybe wisdom. And strangely, that surrender freed me. It showed me that understanding isn’t owed. That my path is my own.

But still. I don’t know what it feels like to be accepted by them for the sheer fact that I exist—that I am enough, without translation. That grief has no sound. Only space.

Maybe that’s what this is: an acknowledgment. A reckoning. A decision to carry forward only what’s mine, and leave the rest behind. Because I am learning. And part of that learning is knowing when to stop carrying things that no longer serve the journey.

Letting go isn’t easy. It’s not clean. It’s not instant. It feels like saying goodbye to a village you grew up in, even when that village never truly saw you. You walk forward without a map, only the clarity that this path—uncertain, unsanctioned—is yours. That has to be enough.

And when I choose to love now, I try to do it with fewer expectations. No ladders. No scorekeeping. Just presence. Just the truth of recognizing another and saying: you don’t need to earn your place here. That, to me, is the kind of love worth carrying forward.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai

Monologue #3: On the Edge of Morning

I’ve been thinking about whether I can write joy—or if pain is the reason I can even recognize it. I set the pain down for a moment, wanting to give happiness a voice, and then my mind wandered. Could I express joy without having known sorrow? If I didn’t know the texture of ache, would the light feel as rich? Am I chasing a paradox, or living one? What I’ve come to understand is this: my happiness isn't loud or unshakable—it's in the meaning I find through the ache of transformation. There's beauty in suffering when it leads to growth, and for me, it has. I see the change with clarity. And I know this is just the beginning. Most days I accept that. Other days, I need reminding. That’s where humility lives—in the process. What follows is not an answer, but a reflection. A monologue from the edge of who I was, stepping into who I’m becoming.

On the Edge of Morning

Can I write joy?
Or is it only the shadow of pain that has taught me the shape of light?
I wonder this often, usually in the quiet—
when the night hasn’t quite let go
and the sky is still debating whether to rise.

Pain, I know.
Pain has carved rivers through me,
made valleys where there once were flatlands.
It’s honest, relentless—
and it’s made me pay attention.

But lately…
there is this thing.
This soft, golden thing that arrives not with trumpets,
but with the sigh of birds and the shy stretch of light over rooftops.
Joy.

Not loud. Not demanding.
Just… here.
Present the way breath is present when you stop trying to hold it.

I used to belong to dusk.
To the ache of endings,
to the velvet hush of moonrise,
to the safety of being unseen.

But something has shifted.
Life—or maybe loss—has spun me toward morning.
And dawn,
that unfamiliar face,
now feels like a mirror I didn’t know I needed.

Joy—
if it’s a color, it’s the ones at dawn, isn’t it?
Those first hues after the black has burned away.
The blues that haven’t yet decided they’ll become sky,
the orange like the breath of something divine
exhaling over the edge of the earth.

If it’s a sound, it’s the birds.
But not just the birds—
it’s the vibration of their song.
There’s a certain kind of wakefulness in the morning air
that doesn’t exist at dusk.
It’s a different kind of permission.

I used to live for the moon.
I was a creature of dusk,
a loyal student of shadow.
But now—
now I can capture the morning light perfectly.
I didn’t seek this shift,
but life…
life will reassign you without asking.

And I’ve accepted this displacement,
because in it is new learning,
absorption, awakening.
Even if I didn’t plan it—
even if some days, I still miss the comfort of darkness.

There’s a difference, I’ve learned,
between happiness and joy.
Happiness is quicksilver—
slippery, bright, often borrowed.
Joy feels more like a moment you can bottle—
solid, still, deeply yours.

Maybe I am playing with semantics.
But isn’t that what poets do?
We give names to things that don’t ask for them—
we try to frame the light
even as it shifts.

My happiness, if I name it now,
is in knowing that the pain of this transformation
was not for nothing.
That there is beauty in the suffering
when the suffering is not just decay—
but a kind of compost for the soul.

Growth has come.
Clarity has come.
And with them, humility—
the kind that kneels quietly,
not as a surrender,
but as a reverent knowing:
This is just the beginning.

Some days, I remember that easily.
Most days, I carry it gently.
Other days, I forget, and must be reminded—
and even that forgetting is part of the becoming.

With Grace & Ink,

Mai