When the unknown reaches back

 I reached into the dark —  

not to conquer it,  

but to listen.  

The silence had weight,  

a breath that trembled  

like the pause before lightning  

decides to exist.  

Something ancient stirred there,  

beyond the veil of my fear,  

and I felt it —  

a pulse not my own,  

answering.  

Not cruel, not kind,  

but curious.  

It reached back.  

My skin became the question.  

My soul became the door.  

Every heartbeat echoed,  

*Who are you to call me forth?*  

And in that shivering stillness,  

I understood —  

the unknown is not empty.  

It is the mirror  

that only answers  

when you dare to touch it.  

Its fingers brushed mine —  

fire and ice in the same breath.  

And I was no longer just *me.*  

I was the echo,  

the reaching,  

the infinite loop  

of discovery and surrender.  

When the unknown reached back,  

it did not take me.  

It unveiled me.  

And the darkness whispered,  

with the voice of a thousand stars:  

*“Now you know —  

I was never the void.  

I was you,  

waiting to be found.”*