Descent

Descent

It starts as release—
the long exhale you didn’t know you were holding,
the moment your body loosens against the frame.
No signs mark this path.
No plaques.
No numbers ticking upward.
Only the hush of gravity
sliding its hand down your spine.

The canyon yawns wide,
its mouth a cathedral carved from silence.
You lean into it—
not the engine, not the road—
but the surrender of weight to air.

The first drop is a hush in your chest,
a pressure lifting instead of pressing,
lungs startled by sudden room to expand.
The second is your heartbeat tumbling forward,
each thud falling faster than your ribs can catch.
The third—
the third is a thread snapping.
And you do not want it back.

Down—
your hair is a banner streaming.
Down—
the horizon tilts, a river of stone and sky.
Down—
your voice breaks loose,
half-laughter, half-cry,
all praise.

No wreckage.
No shatter.
Just the slow astonishment of landing whole,
like the earth has taken you back in,
not punished but welcomed,
not broken but made vast.

And in that silence after—
you realize you are no longer falling.
You are held.