My Muse

I met her by the ocean,
sitting quiet, facing blue,
I could tell she wasn’t broken,
just carrying something true.
I asked if she was hurting,
she shook her head and smiled,
Said, “It’s not sadness, not tonight…
It’s melancholy — soft and wild.”

She said it like a simple truth,
no fear, no excuse,
She looked at me and whispered,
“That feeling… that’s my muse.”

And I’m telling you, she taught me something,
standing there beside the sea,
That melancholy isn’t weakness,
it’s a way to feel deeply.
If you listen instead of running,
if you don’t refuse the bruise,
What you’re calling your shadow tonight
might be quietly shaping you.

The house still breathes your echoes in the hall,
Dust in the sunlight, frames upon the wall.
I hear your laughter in the ticking clock,
Every second says your names I can’t unlock.

I write you poems in the margins of pain,
Turn tears into ink, let them fall like rain.
Every brushstroke, every fractured line,
Is a promise you’re forever mine.

And listening to her, I understood,
some losses never really leave,
They just change their shape inside us,
become a different way to breathe.
If you honor what still hurts a bit,
instead of calling it abuse,
You might find your strength was hiding there,
right inside your muse.

I asked her what keeps her steady
when the nights come back too strong,
She said, “I breathe, I move my body,
I don’t stay stuck for long.
I sit with what is heavy,
I let it pass me through,
I don’t fight who I’ve become…
I learn how to be true.”

And now I’m saying this to you,
whoever’s listening tonight,
Your scars don’t cancel beauty,
they just teach it how to fight.
She thought her melancholy owned her,
but I saw something truer come through,
She didn’t just live with her muse…
She became one too.

The sea kept breathing slowly,
and so did we.