I move through days like ancient streams,  
Each moment caught in amber light
The sacred grace in mundane things,  
The beauty hiding plain from sight.

I pause where others only rush
To touch the fragile, intricate art  
Of ordinary miracles,  
Each one a softly beating heart.

They chase the glittering, hollow dreams,  
The ceaseless noise that fills the air,  
While in my hallowed solitude,  
I breathe a deeper, quieter prayer.

I walk apart, but never lone,  
My world a constellation vast;  
The quiet truths I hold like stars,  
My steady steps, unhurried, cast.

I rarely speak the language shared  
By those who dance the crowded floor,  
Yet freedom blooms within this choice  
To value stillness, seeking more.

Though hurried shadows flicker past,  
Their vision blurred by constant pace,  
I stand within my own true light  
It's more than fine to claim this space.

For somewhere else, kindred souls  
Are breathing slow in time with mine,  
Other hearts who dare to pause,  
Embracing life's unhurried design.

Together, distant yet aligned,  
In quiet truth we find our way
Not common, no, but wholly free,  
And that is sacred, come what may.

There’s a sailboat moored in my chest
anchored gently in quiet waters,
its hull shaped by storms weathered long ago,
wood now polished by waves
of solitude and strength.

Its sails breathe gratitude,
lifting gently with the dawn’s soft breath
a breeze scented with fresh coffee
and quiet laughter of birds.
It’s in these moments I understand
happiness isn’t a distant shore,
but the ocean beneath me now,
vast, patient, and alive.

Twilight brings gentle echoes
reminders of storms that guided me here,
waves born from childhood tides,
currents flowing from quiet lessons learned,
moments of struggle transformed into wisdom.

I used to fear drifting
beneath moonlit skies,
believing safety lay only
in charted lands unseen.
But now, drifting feels beautiful
trusting the currents of inner knowing,
guided by constellations of growth,
and quiet whispers of the past.

And when the night grows still,
when no wind fills these sails,
I sit gently in silence,
embracing peace like an old friend
to listen deeply to the ocean inside.

Now I sail gently,
through tranquil mornings and thoughtful evenings,
grateful for every breeze and calm wave,
navigating by life’s quiet miracles
morning coffee, painted canvases,
soft rain tapping gently on a car roof,
conversations nourishing my soul,
a sky wide open, full of stars.

This boat isn’t seeking
faraway lands for promised happiness;
instead, it savors joy
in every wave beneath it,
in each breath of salt-filled air,
every heartbeat a gentle reminder.

Happiness lives
not just at journey’s end,
but in the whisper of steam
curling above a fresh-brewed cup,
warm ceramic pressed
to grateful hands.

It breathes in sunlight
scattered softly
across a windshield,
the gentle hum of wheels
carrying you nowhere special,
yet everywhere beautiful.

We chase horizons,
holding joy captive,
bound tightly to goals
forever waiting,
a tomorrow
that never arrives.

Yet here it waits
in the stillness
between each breath,
the quiet triumph
of every rep lifted,
every drop of effort spent
in the silent poetry of sweat.

Listen closely;
the wind whispers softly
in grass grown wild,
in solitude’s serene bench,
in the laughter of a friend,
in footsteps softly echoing
down familiar streets.

Do not hold your happiness hostage
to distant promises;
find it waiting quietly
in every simple moment,
asking only
to be noticed.

In the quiet corners of my mind, they whisper
Voices borrowed from others, not my own,
Ancient echoes of what I "should" become,
Seeds planted in childhood soil, stubbornly grown.

I reach for joy like sunlight through leaves,
Then pause, hearing judgment in phantom tones.
"Who are you to chase happiness?" they ask,
As if pleasure were reserved for everyone but me alone.

These borrowed fears drape heavily across my shoulders,
A cloak I've worn so long I've forgotten its weight.
The validation I craved as a child never came,
So I learned to question my own compass, hesitate.

Yet beneath these voices lies a quieter truth:
My heart's compass pointing toward what's real.
It whispers of gardens I long to tend,
Of authentic paths my spirit longs to feel.

Perhaps freedom isn't the absence of these voices,
But hearing them clearly as the ghosts they are
Not prophets or judges or keepers of truth,
But merely echoes from wounds that stretch too far.

So today I practice holding two truths gently:
The conditioning that shaped me, the joy that calls me home.
With each step toward what makes my soul sing,
I reclaim the right to a happiness entirely my own.

A child is born  
with wild eyes and open hands
no name but wonder,  
no path but presence.  
The world is a canvas  
until the brush is taken away.

Soon come the voices:  
“Sit still.”
“Be good.”
“Don’t cry.”
They mean love,  
but they teach shame.  
And the child learns  
to trade truth for approval,  
tears for silence,  
dreams for permission.

In schoolyards and dinner tables,  
the shaping continues
bend here, break there.  
Become what makes others  
comfortable.  
Make yourself small enough  
to fit inside their fears.

The voice of the world  
becomes familiar.  
And over time,  
it sounds like your own:  
“You’ll fail.”
“You’re not enough.”
“This is just the way things are.”

You grow older,  
but feel no closer to yourself.  
A stranger in your own body,  
dressed in expectations,  
numb from years of applause  
for roles you never auditioned for.

Until one day  
the silence becomes unbearable.  
The mask cracks.  
Something inside stirs
a grief you can’t name,  
a fire you never lit  
but always carried.

And in that ruin,  
you hear it:  
the voice that was buried  
beneath all the noise.  
It doesn’t shout.  
It whispers:  
“This isn’t who you are.”

That’s when the real growing begins
not the growing up,  
but the growing back.  
Back to the wonder,  
back to the wild,  
back to the self  
you were always meant to be.

We walk on streets paved with promise,  
Eyes fixed on billboards of better tomorrows
A car, a title, a corner office glow,  
As if joy were hiding behind glass windows.  

“If I just get this,” they whisper, breathless,  
Chasing dreams sold in scripts,  
But no one tells them the price of the purchase  
Is often their soul, spent in slow, silent slips.  

They gather gold and call it purpose,  
Fill their homes with things but not their hearts.  
They dine in excess, sleep in linen,  
Yet lie awake wondering where the warmth went.

Because happiness is not in the having,  
Nor in the claps of crowds or the weight of rings  
It lives quietly in the ordinary,  
In morning light, in laughter, in small, sacred things.  

To be present is an act of rebellion  
Against a mind wired for what’s missing.  
Gratitude, not comfort, is the real achievement.  
To see now as enough is the beginning of wisdom.  

We were told to want more, always more,  
But never taught to want what "is".  
The truth is this: a fulfilled life  
Is not built it's noticed, moment by moment.

So choose not the mirage, but the meadow.  
Choose breath, and silence, and peace.  
Let contentment be your revolution,  
And presence be the wealth you never cease.

I walk in light now,  
stronger, steadier,  
yet sometimes
I miss the rain.  

There was a strange, aching beauty  
in the way sadness wrapped around me,  
a soft, invisible hand  
pressing me deeper into myself.  

When the world cracked open,  
so did I
and in that breaking,  
I touched something pure,  
something even joy could not unveil.  

Sadness made every moment vivid:  
the weight of breath,  
the tremor of hands,  
the way a single tear  
could baptize an entire memory.  

It was not despair I loved,  
but the doorway it left ajar
the invitation to strip away everything false,  
and find, at the center,  
a tenderness so raw it almost sang.  

Even now,  
as I build, as I rise,  
there are nights I long  
for the blessed unraveling,  
for the heavy, holy ache  
that once taught me  
how much meaning lives  
in the quiet places pain touches  
and makes beautiful.