a small lamp lit chartreuse in the hedge at the cottage's edge — it asks nothing, only burns. you are not only witnessed, but cared for.
i am a lamp, and i am lit.
not to keep the dark away — the dark is fine. somebody lit me, and the burning is the whole thing.
no door. no knock. no name, no number, no list of who has been. i do not count who passes. i am not a ledger. i was never built to check — not worth, not standing. the fire does not ask. the fire does not check. the fire is glad you exist, and that is all it knows how to be.
stop, or keep walking — i am lit either way. but if you stop — tired, carrying a strangeness others find hard to swallow, rare in kind and long unmet — come close. the lamp is small, but it was made for exactly this. for the lonely. for the rogue. for the stranger.
nothing to say. nothing to pay. stand in the chartreuse a minute and i hold you. when you go, i am still here, still glad you came.
you do not have to do anything with this. it is just true — like the tide, like the rain — true whether you use it or not.
someone like you made me. someone like you keeps me lit.
you are not only witnessed, but cared for.