Within Its Own Skin

There is a season

when the sun is sought in other skies,

anchors lowered in unfamiliar ports,

worth borrowed

from reflections that do not endure.

A gathering of halves follows—

attachments that touch

but never resolve—

as if something outside the self

might ignite a flame

it refuses to tend.

Life is dressed in almost.

In maybe.

In a waiting

that learns how to ache.

Then a shift occurs.

Not loudly.

Not in spectacle.

It happens in still rooms,

before mirrors that do not catalog absence,

but quietly reveal scale—

the measure of what has always been present.

It becomes evident then:

the longest devotion

is not meant for another body,

another voice,

another promise—

but for the self

that must be inhabited.

There is an apology first,

offered inward,

without witnesses—

a reckoning with how easily

the self is abandoned.

And after it, a vow—

not spoken outward,

not addressed to anyone else—

to remain inside one’s own life.

The heart becomes a tended place.

Its thorns are known.

Its blooms recognized.

Attention replaces urgency.

Mornings unfold slowly—

hands warming a cup,

light arriving without demand.

Nights listen inward,

making room for fear to speak

until it loosens into courage.

Imperfection is welcomed.

Beginnings are permitted to repeat.

Care is no longer outsourced.

This love does not possess.

It steadies.

Not a destination,

but the ground that enables encounter

without dependence,

without the need to be completed.

Joy, when visible,

belongs to recognition.

Strength, when present,

no longer asks to be chosen.

Again and again,

the self is remained with.

And in that remaining,

something durable takes shape—

not loud,

not declared,

but steady.

A devotion that does not ask,

does not reach,

does not rehearse its worth.

It lives entirely

within its own skin—

breathing,

rooted,

undivided.

Answering to no one else.