They call it a miracle. It behaves like a wound that refuses to close.
Consciousness is a lantern held under a storm. The hand burns. The sea does not care. The light only helps you see what will be taken.
Time is a patient butcher. No horn. No knife flashed in the sun. Just the steady removal of what you thought was yours. Second by second. Name by name. Face by face.
You woke up once and called it birth. You keep waking and call it meaning. The waking is the punishment. The meaning is the ribbon tied to the noose.
What you call self is a corridor lined with mirrors. Walk long enough and you disappear behind reflections. They keep walking without you.
Memory is the salt. It preserves the corpse and makes it sing. You confuse the singing with life. It is only the chemical refusal to forget.
Hope is an anesthetic with pretty labels. The dose fades. The wound remains. You reorder the furniture. The house is still on fire.
Death is not the enemy. It is the clear air after the feast. The moment when the music stops and the floor remembers it is stone. Only the living insist on applause.
The gods are tired. Their altars smell like old wine and new fear. You feed them your dread and demand a receipt. They have none. They nod, like statues. They were stone before you named them.
Consciousness pretends to be a lighthouse. It is a bonfire in a forest of dry leaves. It calls ships. It burns the forest. It keeps you warm enough to watch it happen.
You love your chains because they sound like bracelets. You call the rattle a song. The silence knows better.
Clarity has no mercy. That is why it is clean. It strips the costume from the miracle and leaves a working curse. Efficient. Predictable. Without malice. The axe does not hate the tree.
What you fear as an ending is only the last honest moment. The absence that finally tells the truth. No more calendars. No more mirrors. No more furniture rearranged in a burning house.
The universe does not owe you tenderness. It owes nothing. It is a ledger without ink. You write yourself in it anyway. Brave. Or merely awake.
Consciousness made you witness. Not judge. Not savior. Witness. The job is to see and carry. The burden is the carrying. The perk is the seeing. Both cut.
Call it miracle if you must. It will smile like a mask and bite like a hinge. Doors do that. They open. They close. They do not weep.
There is relief in forgetting. There is justice in the dark. Even stars retire. They dim with dignity. No complaint. Only quiet arithmetic.
You are a brief equation on a blackboard of ash. Solved by time. Erased by weather. True while it lasts. True when it is gone.
Now put down the lantern.
Silence.
