I woke to the same dawn, The same sky, the same sun, But the light felt sharper, colder, Casting shadows on what was always there. We are not changed, But unmasked even more. The cracks in our visage are not new, Fissures painted over with our dreams. What we feared to name, What we wished away, Was never gone, only sleeping. And now it stirs again, Awake and unashamed. This is no reckoning, no fall. It is a reminder That the shadows were never cast away; We merely learned to walk among them. Day after 47, The world remains unbroken, Yet not whole. We are what we have always been, And perhaps that is the unkindest truth of all.