Between the Quiet and the Infinite

There is a room inside the ribcage

where no footsteps echo,

where even memory removes its shoes

before entering.

It is built of unanswered questions

and windows that open inward.

Light does not fall there—

it blooms,

slow as forgiveness.

In that room

I have met the versions of myself

I abandoned at crossroads—

the child who swallowed thunder,

the dreamer who mistook distance for destiny,

the weary pilgrim counting stars

as if they were debts.

They do not accuse.

They hand me mirrors

polished with regret and wonder.

In their glass,

I am both fracture and flame.

Outside, the world sharpens its noise—

sirens of ambition,

the metallic hymn of becoming.

But here,

time kneels.

Silence stretches like a horizon

no map has claimed.

It teaches me the grammar of stillness:

how grief conjugates into grace,

how longing bends into listening,

how fear, when held gently,

unbuttons its armor.

I begin to understand—

the infinite is not a distant sky

but a seed hidden in the marrow,

waiting for the courage

to crack.

And when it does,

the room inside the ribcage

is no longer a room.

It is a doorway,

unlatched by breath,

opening into a field

where every heartbeat

is a star

learning

its own name.