©ESR 2026

I stood in the dreamspace,

half-light, half-memory,

where the veil was thin and mercy,

for once, did not hide from me.

He found me there,

an acquaintance from a softer life.

His arms opened without hesitation,

without condition,

and I broke inside them

like dawn does over mountains.

No words,

just warmth,

like the universe had finally said:

you are not forgotten.

But dreams are not merciful things.

She followed,

my mother, or the shadow

wearing her face.

She looked at me with glass-bone eyes

and said,

“You were a mistake.”

The words echoed

like church bells cracked on purpose,

ringing shame into every hollow part

I was trying to heal.

I didn’t speak.

Not to her.

Not to the wound.

I only looked up,

past her,

to the statue of the Madonna

at the edge of the dream.

And I asked,

with my silence,

if she could hear

what I could not say aloud.

She blinked.

Stone lids, slow and kind,

a tear carved from time,

slipped down her cheek.

And I knew,

the dead had spoken,

but the divine had listened.

And she would keep listening

until I believed

what the living had failed to show me:

That I am not a mistake.

That I am not the echo of her regret.

That I am the prayer

someone is still whispering,

even now,

into the dark

in case I wake

and forget my name again.