She sat, aglow, not to rule—
but to receive
what once crouched in the corners,
too strange to soothe.
A creature climbed into her lap,
not with menace,
but with a quiet, trembling truth:
“You cannot bypass me.
I exist.
I am real.”
It was her pain—
the one she used to exile,
the ache with too many teeth,
the sorrow with no name.
Its eyes were oceans—
wide, knowing, unblinking.
Eyes that had seen the underworld
and survived waiting to be seen.
She didn’t flinch.
Didn’t look away.
Didn’t try to fix it into something prettier.
She simply held it.
And in her stillness,
the monster softened—
not into something smaller,
but into something sacred.
She didn’t tame it.
She didn’t need to.
Love had already done
what fear never could.
