No tree.

No lights.

Nothing sweet left to mark the season,
no warmth to feed the cold.

Silence starves
without leaving hunger behind.

The mask was never cruel—
it was careful and costly.

Learned.
Effective.

After a while,
stillness felt dangerous—
like the moment
before feeling
pierces the chest.

Not all transformations require flames.
Some emerge in silence, in the steady breath and quiet certainty carried through ancestral memory.

This poem honors the women who walk with inner sovereignty, not loud, but unmistakably knowing.

Written in memory of Kara aka Mama K

Grief has taught me that love doesn’t disappear; it finds quiet ways to stay.

It shows up in a laugh that lingers after the room has gone still, in a breeze against my cheek, in the small, reminders woven into my day.