What Cannot Remain Frozen

There are places within us

where feeling goes quiet.

Not because it disappears.

Because, for a time,

it has nowhere safe to go.

So we learn to carry on.

We answer the questions.

We keep the promises.

We move through our days

as though nothing has changed.

Until something small

asks us to stop.

A familiar voice.

A forgotten photograph.

A kindness we weren't expecting.

And what we believed

had long been buried

begins to move again.

Perhaps the heart

has never forgotten.

It has simply been waiting

for the moment

it no longer had to remain still.

Not everything

that falls silent

is gone.

Some things

are only waiting

to thaw.