Cracking The Window Poem by Hari Msonda

You let humor interrupt heaviness naturally.

Not enough to erase it,
not enough to pretend
the hard things are not hard
just enough
to let the room breathe again.

You laugh in the middle of difficult conversations
the way people crack windows
in rooms that have forgotten air.

And maybe other people miss it.
Maybe they think it is deflection.
But I think it is mercy.

I think you learned early
that grief becomes unbearable
when no one softens its edges.

So you place humor carefully
between impossible things,
like folded cloth
between glass.

And God,
I love you for it.

For the way you refuse
to let sorrow become theatrical.
For the way your tenderness
never asks to be admired.

You let yourself feel things fully
right up until the moment
they threaten to hollow you out.

Then suddenly,
there it is again:
that small laugh,
that brief light,
that quiet act of survival.

Maybe that is why loving you feels safe.

You never deny the weight of things.
You just refuse
to let grief
have the final line.