Field Theory
A Poem
They sold us a cage, didn’t they?
Five white walls to contain the feral thing we call devotion
Tidy names for a force that should shatter storefronts and rebuild cities
Words, Gifts, Time, Touch, Service
A child’s alphabet to spell out cosmic truth
The ego is a tiny, frantic cartographer mapping out the ocean floor with a ruler
A joke
A splinter mistaken for a mast
Scar tissue holding the memory of every time love arrived as a wrecking ball
So you built a fortress out of fear and named it peace
It casts a long and lonely shadow
We are all we’ve got
We must tear the damned walls down
Gaze unblinkingly at the shrapnel in our history
See the scars as beautiful maps
No judgement
No flinching
No bandages
Only belief
In our soft architecture, clearing the field of noise
Creating a sacred space for our unburdened humanness
When the world becomes too heavy, we stand, two sets of shoulders
Taking the weight, not to rescue, but to share
Solidarity is the only form of prayer I trust
The roar from deep in the chest when they try to dim your light
And tell you to be small
War waged on your behalf
A hand placed firmly on your back
Don’t shrink
Don’t you dare lie down beneath the weight of your own doubt
Look in the mirror held before you
Remember your fire
The sketch of a revolution
A garden
A shared belief
Hands moving in rhythm,
Conspiring to build something bigger than our fears
Space granted to simply be
To make messes
To change your mind
To be incandescently joyful and impossibly sad
No explanations, apologies, or performance required
The constant, soft ask
Tell me more
What else stirs in those unread chapters
Refusal to believe anyone is truly figured out
Burnout is the epidemic
So I offer you my physical labor, my time, my energy
A practical love worn soft with intention
To fill the gaps
To mend the fray
A sacred promise
Standing naked and trembling
Ego stripped away layer by agonizing layer
Until the core is left, and in the ruin, belonging is found
There are more than five ways to love
Endless ways we do it…
Let your past dissolve in the tide
We are all we’ve got
Our language is the only one worth speaking