Answered Prayer's Shadow

I found the folded note

crumpled deep inside a drawer,

the edges worn like a wound

that never quite closed.

I prayed for something—

was it love? was it peace?—

but the answer came wrapped in barbs,

sharp and unrelenting.

It crept inside me slow and quiet,

a shadow settling over ribs,

pressing the breath from my days

and shattering the hope I held.

Sometimes I wonder if I should have left

that prayer unspoken,

forgotten beneath dust and silence,

rather than carried, bloody and raw,

into the light.