O n e

the silent acknowledgment that lets someone know

you get it.

that they’re not alone in what they feel,

that life hasn’t singled them out,

and that your presence evokes comfort in the cold places we’d rather circumvent.

no one evades being human.

feeling human.

being cooked, chiseled, churned by this life.

we may not have been wounded in the same ways,

weathered in the same storms,

or dealt the same cards,

but one thing is certain,

we share the common cloth of soul.

cut from the same fabric,

woven with the same tough loving hands,

we all have stories to tell.

and beneath the words lies a constant thread of belonging.

one that need not be sought

so much as remembered. 

to see familiarity in the glistening eyes of another,

to know the holy, palpable, quiet feeling of knowing you are understood.

and that someone is there,

in the meadow or the void,

the summit or the canyon,

with you.

alongside you,

affirming you,

embracing you,

loving you,

as a resplendent reflection of themselves.

when we stay private, remain hidden,

when we refuse to let ourselves be known in our humanity,

we lose the opportunity to be loved in our totality.

we isolate ourselves through fear of rejection,

when your fear is my fear.

your grief is my grief.

your struggles are my struggles,

though the appearances may differ,

they shimmer with the same light.

we are not separate.

we are a collective  of star-dusted,

love-imbued fragments

connected by invisible, amorphous tissues

of sweet & salty human belonging.

one body,

one being,

one heart,

all finding

our way back home.