There was a time

when the day did not end

until she arrived.

She never knocked.

She didn’t have to.

She knew the hour.

The quiet hour.

The hour when the noise of surviving stopped

and the body finally told the truth

about how tired it was.

She didn’t come to hurt me.

She came to hold me.

To soften the sharp edges

the day had carved into my skin.

And every night,

I let her.

Not because I was weak.

Because she felt like peace.

Because she felt like permission.

Because she felt like the signal

that the war was over.

But peace, I would later learn,

and relief

are not the same thing.

One restores you.

The other rehearses you.

Rehearses the same ending.

Over and over again.

Until one night,

something unexpected happened.

I reached for her—

and stopped.

Not because she was gone.

But because

for the first time…

I understood why she was there.

And that changed everything.

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