The 24-Hour Strategy

 When sorrow comes — uninvited, unannounced —

I give it a chair.
I give it twenty-four hours.

A full day to cry,
to crumble,
to sit with the silence and let it echo.
I let the ache stretch its legs,
the tears take their time.
No pretending,
no brave faces,
no rush to mend what still bleeds.

For one day,
I let myself fall apart.
I honor the weight of what hurts.
I whisper to the storm,
“You have until midnight.”

And then —
the clock turns,
the world exhales,
I sleep.

When the sun rises,
it brings a new version of me —
washed, not healed,
but lighter somehow.

No more replaying the pain,
no more holding the hurt like proof.
The past stays where it fell.
Life calls again —
softly, insistently —
move, breathe, begin.

That is the 24-hour strategy:
One day to drown,
a lifetime to swim.