The ones closest to me have a kind of weight I keep forgetting to give them credit for carrying every time another far-off voice arrives louder,
The ones closest to me were there on the days the work was not working and the drafts were ugly and the whole thing felt like a mistake,
The ones closest to me know what it actually cost to show up to the blank page again after the last attempt left me hollowed out but I just to want to try again,
Am I handing the seat of honor at my own table to the person who passed through once but did not slow down to understand before they spoke,
The ones closest to me have earned a kind of authority I keep withholding even as I freely pour it into the hands of every stranger who arrives...
The ones who showed up after the room was finished never saw the mess, the arrangement and yet they speak as though they understand its whole history,
The ones who showed up after all the heavy lifting was done and out of sight feel entirely entitled to pass judgment on the results without once asking the story behind,
The ones who showed up after did not sit beside me during the ugly and the uncertain and the what- if-this-is-all-wrong,
How much of my settled daily groundedness have I quietly surrendered to a voice that never once asked of what actually required of me to build,
The ones who showed up after will be gone again soon enough and I will be the one left cleaning up the residue of every word they left in the room on their way through...
The thing I made came from a place that was private and slow and not yet sure of itself and it deserved more care from me,
The thing I made did not come from the loudest or most confident version of me and it should not have to be judged by the loudest,
The thing I made belongs to the version of me who stayed with it through the doubt and the bad drafts and the circling back to the beginning,
Can I hold what I made as still carrying worth even after it has passed into hands that will not all choose to hold it with the same care and honesty it was built,
The thing I made still lives most fully and most accurately inside the version of me who made it before the world had anything to say about it at all...
The center of all of this is still the place where I was sitting alone before any of the wanting, or the building ,or the sharing, or the judgment ever existed,
The center of all of this never needed the validation of the far voices to confirm that what was made in the quiet was worth making with all of the energy I poured into it,
The center of all of this already knows how to sort the kind of feedback that actually helps me grow from the kind that only echoes in my chest,
What would shift inside me if I measured the weight of what I have made not by how far the response traveled but by how honest and present I was when I first sat down to build it,
The center of all of this is not somewhere I am still traveling toward but the exact ground I was already standing on before I let myself be convinced I had somehow gone astray, and I choose to stand here fully and call it a new found home…
Watchwords:
The closest ones earned authority I kept withholding,
Far voices passed through and called it judgment,
The thing I made belongs to who built it,
The center knew me before the wanting arrived,
The ground I stood on before I called it lost...
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream:
