A Pilgrimage Inward

I've wandered through questions like forests in fog-quiet, vast, Where every path looks like truth until it vanishes beneath my feet. What is life, if not a series of echoes asking to be answered? And love-is it a flame, or merely the warmth left behind after someone leaves? I've looked for it in books, in late night thoughts that don't go away, In the way coffee cools when you forget it in the middle of a memory. I've felt joy like a sunrise and sorrow like a long, unending dusk, And still, I ask-what is worth holding when everything changes? "Amor vincit omnia." Love conquers all. But no one tells you how love might conquer you first-quietly, painfully, beautifully-and leave you remade in the wreckage. I've made promises in the dark that I couldn't keep in the daylight, And others I whispered to myself so quietly, they became prayers. I've wanted to be everything: the healer, the fire, the poem, the home. But I've learned that sometimes, it is enough to simply stay To stay kind, to stay honest, to stay trying. Now, I am still searching- but I walk with lighter steps and a steadier breath. I don't have all the answers, but I have this: The promise to love deeply, live gently, and keep going anyway.