Shownotes
The Anatomy of Dawn
Saleha Najeeb
Do not mistake the smile for light.
It is merely how we hide the mourning
of what never had a funeral.
Grief, it does not arrive or leave,
it resides,
like a second pulse beneath the one we claim to feel.
I have carried it, you know
the quiet dissonance of appearing alive
while the soul rehearses its own absence.
There are days I speak,
but every word drips through a sieve of silence,
and you, perhaps,
know this kind of breathing too.
Yet, even stillness grows restless.
Even darkness remembers the shape of dawn.
So I began
not running,
but returning
to the small certainties I once abandoned,
a breath that does not tremble,
a thought that does not ache to end.
Freedom did not come in thunder.
It arrived like forgiveness
a slow unburdening,
a light learning the contours of my name again.
And in that moment, I was not the same.
I was the echo remade into a voice,
the ashes remembering they were once flame.
Now, when I speak,
my words are not a sieve but a garden.
The air hums with what I chose to reclaim.
I have returned
not unscarred,
but luminous from within the wounds.
This, dear reader,
is not survival
it is the anatomy of dawn.
More from Saleha Najeeb ↓
- @gotta_slayyyy on Instagram
- Her book, Whispers Unveiled, is available now
Mentioned in this episode:
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