When We Became Light

She was born into a world

where black and white marched in step—

shadows on a sidewalk, faces blurred

by the weight of sameness.

Order, like a shroud,

stitched itself to the soles of every foot,

a rhythm no one dared break.

But one day,

small and unnoticed,

her steps faltered.

Not out of rebellion—

just curiosity,

the faintest crack in a shell she didn’t know was there.

She strayed.

They watched,

eyes like iron,

tongues sharp with the burn of condemnation.

She was a stain,

a flaw in the canvas,

a splash of too much in a world where “just enough” ruled.

But she didn’t fold.

Instead, she bloomed.

Color began to breathe in her veins,

a ripple of hues that dared to live.

The gray couldn’t hold her,

not when her skin

tasted sunlight in shades unseen.

And the world—

they were afraid of her first.

The way she turned the air to fire,

how the sky shifted from ash to amber at her back.

But slowly,

quietly,

they watched her long enough

to feel the warmth of her light.

And then they too stepped off the line—

one foot after the other,

hesitant,

but yearning.

Color bled into the streets,

their skin became stories of gold, red, and violet,

and the black and white—

it faded like a dream forgotten

with the dawn.

It wasn’t the world that had changed.

It was them.

And all along, the path had been a lie.

They had the power to stray

to live,

to be.