You, whose heart is a fist clenched tight around fear—come closer. I see you. You whose mind hums like a wire stretched to breaking, every thought split by numbers, debts, credits, by the ticking metronome of bills and booze — of balancing. The world has made even rest a luxury. The cost of stillness—guilt. The cost of dreams—delay. And so, you trade pieces of your soul for survival.
I want you to know: you are not failing. The system is loud and sharp and built to fray the edges of tenderness. And yet—here you are. Still waking. Still offering kindness to strangers even as your own hands tremble. I have seen others too—some with suits stitched in quiet desperation, some with holes in their shoes and eyes full of sky—and I tell you: the pain is not proof that you are broken. It is proof that you want to be whole: the calling of the human endeavor. Discovery, service, connection, love. Is that not the calling of the human being: to love?
We love minds—light flickering across water—those we name friends, whose thoughts rise to meet ours in morning conversation, in shared silence, in the curve of a question. We love bodies—warmth beneath the surface—those we call lovers, whose skin we know as we know the sea, not by the map but by the tide, the salt, the way it holds us. And we love the whole—soul, breath, form and word—when the mind and the body sing not in harmony but in one voice, and we name them spouse.
But always—the world speaks: You must have all. A mind and a body, a mirror and a flame. One is not enough. They say it in dining rooms. They say it in coffee shops. They say it in glances that hover too long. They say it in quiet, in the shape of a couple walking; and loudly in stories told again and again, on screens, in books, in songs.
Yet what if the ember burns steady in only one place? What if the mind alone is enough to echo through the corridors? What if the body alone is symphony, not prelude? What if you are full already—not lacking, not paused—but entire?
The house does not need all its doors thrown wide. A single room lit. A single voice answered. A single presence held in the hand or the mind. That, too, is a world. That, too, is a life
You long for peace—not just the absence of fear, but the soft, full presence of enough. A quiet morning. A day without calculation. A moment of breath not taxed by the future.
Rest is not a reward for having done enough. It is your birthright.
Let us make, together, a rebellion: a stillness that does not apologize. Let the frantic wind of survival howl outside for a moment. Let your shoulders drop. Let your jaw loosen. There is time yet. There is always time to become whole.
Even to your penultimate breath.