…the ground of despair

They say that everything that rises must fall
but they do not account for those of us
who have learned to live in defiance
I do not mean, floating endlessly
in some impossible freedom
I mean something quieter
the deliberate refusal to return to the place
that once diminished me
I have touched the ground of despair
I have known its gravity intimately
and now I choose otherwise
not always easily, not always gracefully
but persistently, I rise in small ways
in the thoughts I allow to remain
in the memories I choose not to revisit
in the hope I protect
even when it feels fragile
defying gravity is not a spectacle
it is a discipline
a daily, invisible act of choosing light
over the familiar pull of darkness
and though the world may never see it
though there is no applause
for this quiet rebellion
I know what I am doing
I am staying aloft in a universe
that once insisted that I fall
©Ann Bagnall