There is a hunger that has been building inside me longer than I have been honest about, never loud, never dramatic, just quietly occupying space I kept pretending was already accounted for,
There is a hunger that I keep feeding even when it slowly unmakes me and leaves marks I pretend aren't there,
There is a hunger that disguises itself as ambition but underneath it is just a quiet ache I haven't had the courage to name it out loud,
There is a hunger, am I feeding it because it is genuinely mine to follow or because the thought of reaching the end of my life with nothing to show for the wanting is a fear I have never been brave enough to sit with long enough to answer,
There is a hunger that has owned me longer than I have ever consciously chosen to own anything about myself…
There is a longing that wraps itself around the softest and most unguarded parts of me without asking permission,
There is a longing I’ve dressed in noble and respectable words to avoid the shame of my need,
There is a longing that has made me smaller and more desperate every single time I let it take the wheel without asking where we are actually going,
There is a longing, do I even remember the last time I wanted something without the fear arriving at the same moment where the two are so tangled together now that I can no longer tell where the wanting ends and the bracing for its loss begins,
There is a longing that quietly became the anchor long before it ever had the chance to become the current that was supposed to move me…
There is a version of me that has pinned all of her calm and her steadiness entirely to outcomes she cannot see or touch or guarantee,
There is a version of me that calls it vision and purpose when if I am being honest with myself it is really just desperation wearing a much prettier coat than it deserves,
There is a version of me that has spent more time rehearsing the moment of arrival than she has ever spent patiently and honestly building the actual road beneath her feet,
There is a version of me that is still trying to locate the exact moment the dream shifted, when it stopped feeling like something I chose freely and started feeling like an obligation I had somehow agreed to,
There is a version of me that keeps forgetting she was already whole and enough before any of the wanting ever started building…
There is a cost to caring this deeply about something I haven't even touched or held yet,
There is a cost I keep agreeing to without slowing down long enough to count what I am actually spending, the peace, steadiness, the quiet confidence of someone who knows exactly what they are worth and charges accordingly,
There is a cost measured in all the nights I couldn't sleep because the future felt simultaneously too possible and too cruel to bear quietly,
There is a cost to this desire. Can I hold it loosely enough that if it slips away it leaves me still standing — still whole, still mine, still capable of wanting something new without the scar of this one defining everything that comes after,
There is a cost I have been calling devotion for years now when if I am fully honest with myself I should have been calling it fear all along…
Watchwords:
The wanting owned me before I ever named it,
I dressed the longing in words I could defend,
Chasing the arrival without building the road,
The dream became a debt I never borrowed,
Calling it devotion when it was always fear…
Here is Tikatarot, who dares you to answer the question, “Who am I?”..
As and will always be reminding you to dream:
