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montana changes after midnight—

the whole prairie exhales,

and the dark gets heavier

in that way only big sky darkness can,

thick enough to feel like a hand

pressed gently

over the mouth of the world.

this is the hour

when the wind sounds lonelier

than anything human,

when the cottonwoods gossip

like old women with secrets,

and the stars glare down

like they’re disappointed

we still haven’t caught on.

i walk through it anyway—

barefoot mind, open ribs,

the ghost of who i used to be

trailing a few steps behind

like a stubborn dog.

the quiet here is never quiet.

it hums with old grief,

with the ache of women

who stayed too long,

with men who swallowed their pain

until it calcified,

with every small-town rumor

that pretends it’s truth.

but it also hums

with something holy,

something vast,

something that reminds me

i am both the wound

and the one who heals it.

out here, after midnight,

i can hear my own awakening—

soft, steady, unafraid—

like a heartbeat learning

it never needed permission

to exist.

and in this wide, dark openness,

i remember:

i am not the story they told.

he'd never read,

loved him in ways

I never said.

He was chaos,

I was calm

and yet I held on,

like a tide to a vanished moon.

He may never know

the depth of my devotion,

but even now,

years later,

he visits the corners of my mind

like a ghost

I never asked