when do we begin

when do we

slip out of the names

they handed us like barcodes—

peel off the labels

that told us who to be

before we ever remembered who we were?

when do we

cut the threads

to this gleaming machine,

greased with illusion,

where worth is weight

and love is bought

in pieces?

they taught us to separate

to mistrust

to measure

to fight

as if the soul could be split

or owned.

but I wonder—

even as the dark tightens—

do we not carry

a light that spills

through every crack in the design?

do we need the tension,

the rhythm of falling and rising,

to remind us we are alive?

is this what balance really means—

not stillness,

but motion,

not perfection,

but presence?

maybe the beauty

isn’t in escaping the cycle

but in learning how to

stand inside it

without forgetting

we are

the spark

the witness

and the fire.