Not everything that breaks you is meant to harm you.

Some things break you open

The sun has returned after weeping skies

She filters through the trees in ribbons

laying herself across my skin

not in heat

but in hush

I sit with tea and unspoken prayers

surrounded by blooms I coaxed from earth

with trembling hands and whispered hope

Their faces turn toward the light

some nibbled by deer

still, they offer color

still, they sing

The bees perform their ancient symphony

The flag lifts and bows in rhythm

The dogs curl beneath the quiet

And I remain

rooted in the moment

and in myself

There is movement

on the other side of this sacred line

Footsteps

Voices

Wheels on gravel

A pageant of joy

gathering just beyond the reach of my porch

But I am not within it

And that

is its own kind of grace

Where I once felt displaced

I now feel delivered

Where I once felt wounded

I now feel softened

I do not have to clean up a mess I didn’t build,

do not have to perform where presence is a prop,

do not have to enter with an external masking of internal emotions to protect another

that reveres illusion more than truth

Instead

I sit among the wild things

and let them teach me

There is no truth in the now

Truth comes in the waiting

in the stillness

in the sediment of experience

as it falls and finds its resting place

like a stone drifting through water

It doesn’t crash

It settles

And that takes time

If you reach too soon

you interrupt its shape

If you speak too early

you miss the language of its silence

So I wait

not passively

but reverently

for what the ache may unveil

in its own unhurried way

There was a time I thought harm had a name

that betrayal wore a face

that what felt like breaking me was orchestrated by cruelty

But now

I see more clearly

What once felt venomous

was strangely medicinal

An unexpected chrysalis

forcing me inward

unfolding what I did not know I carried

They weren’t striking me

They were sculpting me

I mistook the pressure as punishment

But it was pressure that carved the poem from the stone

And somewhere

beneath the sunrise and sunset of this gathering

I hear it

soft

familiar

true

Don’t worry

I got you

A dragonfly swirls again in circles

its wings glistening like truth before it lands

and lifts again

It hovers

then flutters toward the sound next door

before returning

like it never left

Inside

we navigate each other’s tenderness

without a map

without a manual

just breath

just small offerings of presence

We’ve prepared to stay

We’ve prepared to leave

But I no longer want to run

There is medicine in staying

even when it stings

even when it echoes

even when it bends the heart

and shakes the voice

Because sometimes

the deepest healing

asks you to remain

asks you to feel it all

asks you to stop being afraid

of hearing what the silence says

What once looked like a path through torturous waters

now shows me a beautiful reflection of calm

I wait

with the bees

with the blooms

with the flag that waves with memories

I wait

with the shadows

and the light

and the truth I no longer rush to name

And I learn

that I am not the one unraveling

I am the one becoming

The Gathering among us

Let them gather

Let the music rise

Let the laughter spill across lines you no longer need to cross

You are not missing the moment

You are meeting yourself

In the stillness

In the choice to remain

In the sacred blooming

of what cannot be taken

~Kerri-Elizabeth~