The Door

— t r a b o c c o

You want to know what I want?

For us to stop
turning each other
into ghosts.

I’ve seen the bottom too,
and you were there.

Same pain.
Same light.

The same door
that never stayed shut,
no matter how many times
I tried to close it.

I’ve shut that door
a thousand times, darling.

Every time,
light underneath.

Still there.
Still waiting.

Some things
don’t haunt us.
They stand guard.

That’s the only truth I know,
or maybe just the only thing
that refused to let me go.

I tried to disappear
more than once.

But the light
kept
finding
cracks.

I stopped fighting it.

That’s when
it stopped knocking
and started
calling my name.

Now I open the door
when it calls.

I’ve been to the bottom
of myself so many times
I lost count.

And still,
light under the door.

Every time.

Perhaps some truths
don’t pursue us;
they just outlive
every version
of our undoing.

That’s either God
or something
that will not let me leave.

I tried to block things out.
Myself first.

And still, light.
Always lit.

I don’t know what it is.
I just know I stopped
running from it.

That light
is the only thing
that kept me
worth finding.

A lighthouse through fog,
never out of reach, only waiting
for my eyes to adjust to being seen.

That’s when I understood,
strength isn’t closing the door,
it’s standing long enough to see
what keeps opening it.

So maybe it’s time
we stopped pretending
we don’t want the same thing.

Maybe it’s time
we stayed.

Not fixed.
Not perfect.

Just here.

Where the light
keeps reaching for us.

Where neither of us
has to disappear.

Where we open the door
and walk through it together.