Light

“Where the Light Went”

She doesn’t remember exactly when
the other earring disappeared,
only that the dark grew louder after it left.

The star that remains doesn’t shine like it used to.
But she still wears it every day.
Not out of denial,
but as a quiet refusal to forget.

Some say it’s a memory.

But she believes it’s a direction.
A flicker of something not yet broken.
The kind of light you don’t follow,
the kind you carry.