She dreamed of elegance
long before she ever saw Paris—
a quiet ache,
a soft wanting.
Morning to night,
it stayed with her.
And whenever she glimpsed it,
something in her steadied.
And when she finally arrived,
she understood:
nothing this gentle
is ever taken for granted.
What lasts was always underground.
A whole world passes between
that day and today.
Because sometimes belonging
is a story you grow back into
only after leaving.
And what we find
is not the place we left,
but the one we carried-
quietly,
the whole way back.
The past is still ahead of us.
Light always gets there first.
You can only start
from where you stand.
The rest arrives
slowly,
in the shape you’ve been waiting to remember.
