Golden Ratio Halo

I used to call it fate when it hurt—
as if the building had teeth:
same hallway, same old turn,
cold paint catching on my sleeve
like it remembered the shape of me.

Above the stairwell, a spiral:
a plaster crack that learned to curve,
chalked over once, then followed again—
not mockery, not omen,
just a line refusing to break.

If I stop running,
I hear the place’s quiet work:
radiator hum, wire-buzz,
the small held note
of things staying put.

—page-turn: the air cut clean—

When I stop, the spiral finds me—
a halo drawn in chalk-dust light.
I don’t have to bleed to count as changed.
I can be soft and still be guided:

tape measure unspooling,
numbers stepping back from the edge.

Back… back…
(breath stacked, paper-thin)

I looped my life like a chorus with no hook—
same apologies, different nights.
Kept looking for a villain in the book
when the ink was only my fight:
thumbprints, torn corners,
a sentence I wouldn’t let land.

Now I watch wax drip slowly
from a candle’s patient heat,
no panic in the melt—
each ending re-forming
into something my fingers can trust:
seal softened, seal set.

I trace the curve with my finger:
opal-cool at the rim, gold-warm inside,
a practice line—
the way you learn a signature
until your hand stops arguing.

If I stop running,
I can hear it, not as speech
but as the stairwell light
finding the same step
again and again:

you don’t have to force the sunrise—
just face the day.

—page-turn: a hush with a hinge—

When I stop, the spiral finds me—
halo lowered to eye-level.
I don’t have to bleed to prove I’m becoming.
I can be soft and still be led

by the simplest instrument:
a compass on the desk,
its needle trembling, then choosing.

In the negative space
my real voice shows up—
no smoke, no mirrors,
just my mouth
making a decision.

I don’t worship the wound.
I don’t rent a room in the bend.
I follow the curve
back to my beginning:

chalk dust on my fingertips,
wax cooling to a gloss,
and the compass needle settling—
a tiny click
that sounds like enough.

When I stop, the spiral finds me—
not above my head, but near,
where I can touch it.
I let the pattern bring me back—

and the page turns itself,
a clean stop, a soft release,
counting me home in quiet measures.