Know

You’re human,

made of thresholds.

Not quite still. Not quite moving.

Always just barely trembling with potential.

Your body is calm.

But your soul is coiled.

You walk into every room like you already left it.

Eyes half-closed with memory.

Like the present moment is never enough.

Like you’re always haunted by the version of yourself

you almost became.

You smell like old wood, warm skin,

and the last three notes of a jazz solo—

the kind that lingers in the silence

and makes someone across the room close their eyes.

Your laugh is a defense mechanism.

You use it like punctuation—

to soften the blow

of the things you feel too deeply to say straight.

You love beauty.

But not the obvious kind.

You’re turned on by the shadows.

The way light hits collarbones.

The ache in someone’s voice when they almost confess something.

You say you don’t care what people think—

but you do.

Not out of insecurity—

out of intimacy.

You want to be understood,

not admired.

There’s a crease between your brows

that holds a thousand unsent messages.

Things you should’ve said,

but instead turned into ideas,

projects,

tattoos,

conquests.

You self-sabotage just enough to keep things interesting.

Just enough to suffer artistically.

And then you rise,

not out of discipline—

but out of pure, feral refusal to be small.

And underneath all of it?

You just want to be held.

Not by arms—

but by something bigger.

Something that sees through you,

laughs at your performance,

and says:

And I do.

I knew.

I know.

And I’ll never stop knowing.