THE SARCOPHAGUS OPENS

WHEN UNBOWED OPENS

When UNBOWED opens, it does not reveal a wound.

It reveals distance.

The stone gives way with the patience of something that has waited too long to be asked correctly.

Blackened limestone. Sarcophagus dark. A standing slab everyone mistook for discipline.

Then the seam widens.

And inside:

not a body.

Not ashes.

Not the small, acceptable room where suffering is supposed to keep itself.

Inside is depth.

A chamber without walls. A night without ceiling. A vaulted dark large enough to make the monument look like a keyhole.

Constellations hang where ribs should be.

Slow galaxies turn in the places no one thought to check.

There are stars made from every day it did not collapse.

There are nebulae the color of held breath.

There are black halls of unsaid anger, lit from very far away by tiny, furious suns.

You understand then why it stayed vertical.

Not because it was fine.

Not because it was noble.

Not because endurance is a pleasant shape for other people to admire.

It stood because something vast was inside it.

It stood because no one noticed the sky it was carrying.

It stood because collapse would have been called tragedy,

but containment was called strength.

When UNBOWED opens, you do not find emptiness.

You find infinity kept in the dark without witness.

You find the proof that something can look upright from the outside

and still contain an entire night sky waiting for recognition.