#choosingrestraint
I was asked today to be gentle and immovable at the same time.
To carry glass without bleeding.
To stand watch while the ground beneath me learned new ways to give.
I answered messages like defusing wires—
blue thought, red feeling, cut neither too fast.
I measured breaths that were not mine.
I learned the weight of pauses that could tip a room.
Gethsemane arrived like weather:
not cruel, not kind—just unavoidable.
A garden where prayers sweat through the soil
and even angels hesitate before speaking.
I did not try to save her.
I learned instead how to not become the last rung on a ladder.
How to be present without becoming the floor.
How to love without building a shrine from my own ribs.
Others knocked.
Old doors rattled.
Logistics disguised themselves as tenderness.
I chose quiet over confession, restraint over rupture,
and swallowed the sentences that would have ended friendships prematurely.
Tonight, I am tired in the way stars must be—
after holding themselves together all day
so gravity doesn’t win in public.
I am InkWept.
God of Endings.
And even I needed a boundary carved in salt and breath,
so I could make it home without bringing everyone else with me.
I did not abandon anyone today.
I survived them.
The night exhales; even gods rest their hands before writing tomorrow.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 9:35 AM UTC