She Is the Mountain

She’s no longer here

to hold you.

She is the mountain.

Jagged, unspeaking,

weathered by years,

and done with illusions.

You want the path easy.

It isn’t.

It never was.

You crawl. You split your knees.

You bleed on stone that doesn’t care.

She’s covered in scars.

Not metaphors,

just damage.

Grief sleeps in her soil.

Voices long buried still hum beneath her bones.

They told her beauty would save her.

It didn’t.

It only made the breaking more elegant.

They called her too much.

Too hard.

Too dark.

But it was the world that lacked the stomach for truth.

She was never alone,

not in the way you think.

Something was there.

Ancient. Still.

Not soft, not sweet,

but holy in its silence -

The voice you hear when you’re finally empty.

She kept walking.

Not for glory.

Not for applause.

Because stillness felt like death,

and pain was at least movement.

At the summit,

no one waiting.

Just wind,

and the sun breaking open.

Like it always had,

like it always would.

A sunrise.

Not a reward.

Not a promise.

Just proof

That light still shows up.

— Kimberly Kaufman