(a spoken monologue)

(Soft breath)

There’s a certain kind of beauty in knowing a place…
Each corner, each stretch of shadow at its favorite hour.
You know it like home.
Like the backs of your hands.

A friendship that found you at ten—
and stayed.
As you stayed.
That kind of knowing…
is its own kind of love.

And then—
the roads.

Highways humming at a hundred kilometers an hour,
city signs blurred with speed and night,
streetlights flickering like memories you don’t want to let go.

And music—
that song you heard at seven?
It tastes different when you turn eighteen.
Sweeter.
Heavier.

Your thoughts hush…
Sleep finds you gently,
and leaves honey on your tongue.

(Pause)

There’s something unbearably beautiful
about the feelings that undo us—
the ones that make us human.
Our softness.
Our ache.
The way we still choose to love.

And tonight,
a waxing crescent.
A curve in the sky, like a spine arched toward wonder.
The sun may blaze by day—
but the moon…
the moon stays with us through the dark.

(Long breath. Silence.)

©️ Beatriz Esmer