Serendipity

I stood in the rubble of my former self,

dust rising like spirits called to witness.

Nothing kind survives the hour a life caves in.

The ground trembles, the sky watches,

and every shadow waits for the inevitable fall.

When the tower broke, I braced for oblivion.

It never came.

Only a hollow quiet,

the strange hush that follows ruin

when even you forget your own name.

In the wreckage, something flickered.

A thin light curled through the ash

as if the void had faltered

and let one secret slip.

I approached it like a seeker in a crypt.

Not hope.

Only a raw shimmer that refused to die.

A cruel cosmic jest.

Destruction revealing what I never saw

when the walls still held.

Solve et coagula.

Break, then bind.

Scatter, then rise.

I gathered the remnants of myself,

sharp as prophecy,

burned clean of old illusions.

In the end, the tower did not fall on me.

It fell away from me.

Its collapse carved open the horizon,

and in the dust-stained light

I saw a shape I recognised

yet had never dared to claim.

Serendipity rose from the dust,

stepping over the debris

with the casual grace of something ancient.

Not a gift.

Not a warning.

Only a reminder

that sometimes the universe speaks

by taking everything you thought was permanent

and leaving you with the one thing that is.

Yourself.

Unburied.

Lit from within.