Inconsistent. Reserved. Distant. Fickle.
That is how they describe you.
And always, always, you wonder why.
The why is simple. It is plain to anyone watching.
You push them away. Hurry. Before they get too close.
Guard up. Door shut.
Always waiting for the other shoe.
And it drops. It drops because you are listening for it.
In your expectation, you make it so.
You find the exit before you enter the room.
People always leave, you say. That is what they do.
So you leave first. You call it protection.
You have never once considered that they left
because you held the door and stood aside.
This is the way it has always been. Perhaps.
But always is not a promise. It is only a habit.
So here is the question you keep refusing.
Will you let someone close enough to wound you?
The thought empties your lungs.
One more hurt, you think, and that is the end of me.
But the wound you are guarding is the one that never got the chance to close.
Love is not the soft thing.
It is the hard thing.
It asks for the very thing you cannot spare.
Only fools fall in love, you say.
But you are the one at the window,
counting the ways it could go wrong,
while behind you the room empties.
The light goes.
No one comes.
No one was ever asked.
Love is the only thing that is real.
Everything else is just waiting.
CONTINUE THE JOURNEY
If you read that and felt found out, this next part is for you.
When the Wound Becomes the Identity
Years ago I met a woman whose disease had become who she was. She could not be separated from it. The illness was not something she had. It was something she was.
Guarding works the same way.
It starts as protection. Then it becomes a habit. Then it becomes your name. Inconsistent. Reserved. Distant. And you wear it, because at least it is yours.
Health or Disease: Welcome to Your Journey to Wellness
The Pattern Underneath the Poem
You have already tried to change this. You have decided, more than once, that this time you would stay. And then something moved beneath the surface and you were at the door again before you knew you had stood up.
That is not weakness. That is your nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do.
RISE: Healing From the Inside Out goes to the layer beneath behavior. It is the layer where the flinch lives, where the exit gets scanned before you have taken your coat off. You cannot think your way out of it. You can learn to work with it.
RISE: Healing From the Inside Out — Volume 3
Where “People Always Leave” Actually Came From
That line is not a fact. It is a belief, and beliefs are formed somewhere.
Worth does not erode because of what others said. It erodes because of what we began to believe about ourselves afterward. RISE Volume 1 is about how identity and worth are formed, wounded, and restored.
Browse the RISE Circle of Wholeness
The Turning
Teshuva does not mean feeling sorry. It means to return.
The poem ends with a woman standing at a window while the room behind her empties. The whole question is whether she turns around.
Turning is available. It always has been.
Teshuva Repentance: Steps for True Transformation
If this one landed close to home, you are not the only one standing at that window. The Friday Update Newsletter is where I write about the harder parts of healing.
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