Light After the Long Dark

I stood inside a house the rain had gutted

Four walls of ash where something used to live

I spoke my name and couldn't place the sound of it

A stranger wearing everything I'd tried to give

The dark was not a night that turns to morning

It was the kind that takes the clock apart

There's a place beyond the burning

Past the wreckage and the cost

I can feel it at the edges

Everything I thought I lost

I am the light after the long dark

I am the tide returning to the shore

Out of the wreck I rise with an open heart

And I am not who I was before

The old name gone, a new breath in its place

I step out from the ruin into grace

The morning came without a grand announcement

A single line of gold across the floor

I touched it like a question, then an answer

And opened every window, every door

I used to carry grief the way you carry

A wound you won't admit is keeping you

But something in the breaking was a clearing

I walked out into a wider view

There's a place I'm finally standing

Where the weight no longer stays

I can feel the season turning

I am ready for the change

I am the light after the long dark

I am the tide returning to the shore

Out of the wreck I rise with an open heart

And I am not who I was before

The old name gone, a new breath in its place

I step out from the ruin into grace

Every scar became a cartography

A map of where I'd been and what survived

I thought the end was only ever ending

But dying to the old self means arrived

I will not apologize for changing

This is the truest thing I've found down here

I am the light after the long dark

I am the tide returning to the shore

Out of the wreck I rise with an open heart

And I am not who I was before

The old name gone, a new breath in its place

I step out from the ruin into grace

I rise...

Into grace...