The Lightning and the Dark

Some truths arrive slowly.
Like dawn.
Gentle enough
for the eyes to adjust.

Other truths come like lightning.
Sudden.
They split the sky of you
without permission.

And for a moment,
everything is illuminated:
the ruins,
the beauty,
the fear,
the path,
the self you became
to survive.

And then — darkness again.
And not the same darkness.
Because once something is seen,
it cannot be unseen.

That is the strange mercy of lightning.
It does not stay.
It reveals.

And this is how
we stop fearing the dark.
Because we learn
that darkness is not always blindness.
Sometimes it is gestation.
Sometimes it is listening.
Sometimes it is the place
where the next flash
is quietly gathering.