Breaking the Lease

You stayed in the spiral, because it felt known,

Mistook repetition for being your own,

But patterns don’t promise a place to arrive,

So you severed the loop, just to see if you’d thrive.

You carried the weight, like a vow you once made,

Let silence become the currency paid,

Like a truth you had earned, you wore it with grace,

But healing grew heavy and hollow in place.

You bowed to the lessons that broke you in two,

Till breaking became the most honest you knew,

But the mirror grew heavy, the mantra went dry,

And one day you left without needing goodbye.

You started to question the voice in the wall,

Was healing still healing, or just a new stall?

But wisdom grew quiet, and grief grew too loud,

You stepped from the ashes and walked unallowed.

You walked through the ruins expecting a sign,

Each shadow you met, you kept calling divine,

But even the sacred can cage you in stone,

So you chose what was living, and left what was known.

You gave pain a seat at your innermost feast,

It spoke like a prophet, but acted like yeast,

It bloomed in your body, then fed off your light,

So you cleared out the table and took back the night.

You lived like a question with no one to ask,

You wore your survival like some kind of mask,

But silence stopped giving the answers it should,

So you rose from the posture of pain and withstood.

You treated the weight like a virtue to bear,

Believed that endurance was equal to care,

But time doesn’t worship what won’t let you grow,

So you laid down the burden and stepped into no.

You wrote down your hurt in immaculate prose,

Carved poems from bruises and gardens from blows,

But beauty turned bitter, the ink wouldn’t mend,

So you folded the page and called it the end.

You shaped your identity out of the flame,

Made worth from the smoke and compassion from shame,

But fire, unchecked, will consume what you save,

So you turned from the altar and walked out the cave.

Cathrine Hottran 2025