Private Sky

I walk alone

not lonely,

unbound,

beneath a sky

that belongs to me.

In a world

with its own weather,

its own sky,

its own direction.

Each mind its own country

borders unmarked,

crossings imagined.

In a universe with its own gravity of thought,

where even the stars shimmer differently,

and the constellations I see

are unfamiliar to anyone else,

known only to me.

Under this sky

there is only me,

a private map of memory,

where every joy has a past

and every wound

knows my name.

This knowing

loosens something.

Expectations slip off

like old coats,

heavy with borrowed hope.

Disappointment thins,

then disappears,

when no one is asked

to become

more than they are.

I stop waiting for mirrors

to agree with my face.

I stop asking the crowd

to certify my heartbeat.

What remains is:

still,

clean,

pure.

A moment

untouched by approval,

a breath that belongs only to me.

And then

an open sky

moves inward,

the realization

that my acceptance

is enough

for me.

I savor the present

the way fire lives on oxygen,

without permission,

without apology.

I am witness

to my own life,

the only owner

of my breath.

And in this solitude

I am whole,

not diminished,

completely free.