Thresholds Poem by Henrietta Ezegbe

The rooms are counted.
Doors tested.
Light measured where it lands.

She no longer waits
for permission
or applause.

Each wall, each corner
remembers only what belongs.
Each threshold is named.

What is outside
remains outside.
She does not bend.
She does not plead.

Hands steady,
eyes aligned,
she moves through her chambers
with certainty.

The past is catalogued,
not erased.
The present obeys the law of her attention.
The future is a room
not yet furnished.

And in that room
she will walk
without hesitation,
without doubt,
without apology.

Power is not a gift.
It is the air
inside a body
that has learned to hold itself.

This is the intersection:
what has been survived,
what has been claimed,
and what waits to be inhabited.