Poem – Learning to stay
Learning to stay
I thought love meant leaning forward,
holding tighter,
keeping the flame alive with my own breath.
I thought if I softened my grip everything might disappear—
that closeness was something you earned by never resting.
But the body knew better.
It grew tired of reaching into the dark,
tired of listening for footsteps that were never promised.
One day I sat still long enough
to feel my own weight arrive.
The spine rose gently,
not to impress anyone,
just to remember it belonged to the earth.
The heart did not close – it widened.
I placed a hand on my chest as if greeting a shy animal,
and for the first time I did not ask it for anything.
I said: You can stay.
You don’t have to chase.
You don’t have to disappear into another body to be real.
Something loosened then— not love,
but the fear around it.
I learned this slowly: connection does not require collapse,
and intimacy does not ask us to abandon our own name.
Now I stand here,
rooted, breathing, open.
I let closeness come when it comes.
I let space remain when it needs to.
And in that kindness—
quiet, unremarkable, true—
I finally feel how deeply
I have always been held.
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