The One With the Storm‑Bright Eyes

He came into the world  

already carrying a kind of light  

that didn’t belong to anything ordinary.  

Not sunshine.  

Not fire.  

Something gentler, 

like the glow that lingers  

after lightning has touched the sky  

but refuses to leave.  

He was small, 

but he loved big—  

arms thrown around necks  

with the full force  

of someone who never learned  

to hold back.  

He laughed like he meant it, 

ran like the earth was soft beneath him, 

and asked questions  

that made adults pause  

because they didn’t know  

how to answer honestly.  

There was always something  

a little older in his eyes, 

as if he’d lived a life before this one  

and came back  

just to try again  

with more tenderness.  

And then—  

the world shifted.  

Not loudly.  

Not with warning.  

Just one day  

the air felt different, 

and the grown‑ups spoke  

in careful voices, 

and the room filled  

with words too heavy  

for a child to carry  

and too sharp  

for a mother to hear.  

But even then—  

even in the sterile light  

of hospital rooms  

and the quiet hum of machines—  

he held onto that brightness.  

He held onto it  

like it was a rope  

leading him back to himself.  

He is small, 

but he is fierce.  

He is young, 

but he is ancient.  

He is fragile, 

but he is made  

of something the world  

does not know how to break.  

And when he smiles—  

even now, 

even through all of it—  

it feels like the universe  

remembering how to hope.  

-𝕃ℝ 🖤