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thornwork
"Thornwork"
It is not removed.
The prayer repeats,
and still the small barb remains—
a reminder stitched into the flesh
like a seam that will not smooth.
You walk with it.
Not as triumph,
not as defeat,
but as the ordinary weight
that teaches you the measure of your stride.
Grace is not the absence of ache,
but the strange surplus
that arrives in the ache’s shadow—
strength lent in the hollow,
song carried in the rasp.
So you learn to speak
with a thorn in your side,
to build with one hand steady,
the other trembling,
and still the work stands.
And when the day closes,
you find the thorn has not undone you.
It has written itself into your gait,
into the cadence of your breath,
into the stubborn beauty of your endurance.
It is not removed.
But neither are you.
.
