They never asked where you came from. They walked into your abyss blind, as if it were their right to wander through a cathedral of shadows they could never comprehend. They claim to know you—your face, your laugh, your surface—but to know you truly, would they not first need the story of how you got here? The bloodline you carry is irrelevant to them; your favorite color, your favorite food shifts with the weather of your moods anyway. They wanted a version of you they could catalogue. They didn’t want the living, breathing labyrinth of you.
You set the sword down when you realized you didn’t have to fight anymore. No more marching bands, no more breaking the wall just to prove you could. You could simply be who you are: the writer, the artist, and then everything else. Some things matter only to those who matter most. Some stories are too heavy to hand over to strangers who only want the soundbite, not the silence it came from. You stopped telling the tales of those who no longer matter most. You learned that silence can be a form of survival, too.
Some of the greatest moments of your life were with people you would no longer even spit on. And yet you jumped. You dared to leap off the edge into the deep waters of your own soul, chasing down the fragments that had been scattered there like coins at the bottom of a wishing well. You don’t need to feel guilty for the pleasure you feel now, deep in your bones. This is the standstill: the point where you stop running and simply look back—at the distance between where you began and where you are now.
It’s perfectly okay to stand in awe of yourself. To be blessed for what you have and what you’ve overcome. To bless the work your own hands built. It’s okay to stop chasing the ghosts of promises you once made to yourself. The naysayers thought you would never. They doubted you. They said you couldn’t do what you have done. But here you are.
Where are they now—the nonbelievers? Still lost in their sad lives, playing parts in small dramas, pretending to be important to someone other than themselves. They proved you right without even knowing it. You’re not laughing at them. You’re laughing at the absurdity of their certainty, the smallness of their imagination. They never knew your story.
They didn’t know you were born from the sun, carried by the stars, protected by the moon. They didn’t know what you carry. They didn’t know the warrior inside you. They didn’t know that your people were burned alive at the stake for what they believed. They didn’t know that your ancestors came from rocky waters so you could stand on solid ground. They didn’t know you would be the first in your line to do what those before you could not. They didn’t know you are royalty.
They didn’t know you have eagle’s wings.
They didn’t know you can enter rooms with your mind.
They didn’t know you can hear their thoughts.
They didn’t know you can taste their insecurity.
They didn’t know you are always one step ahead—not because of luck, but because of what you carry. They didn’t know that you are both the wall and the hammer, the sun and the eclipse. They didn’t know that you survived the trial by fire and built a sanctuary from the ashes. They didn’t know.
And maybe they never will.
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