Fasika

not because the world has grown quieter, but because i no longer feel responsible for every noise it makes. these days, i choose my battles the way a gardener chooses what to water. some things are simply not mine to keep alive. there are evenings where solitude sits across from me at the table. not as a punishment, but as a familiar guest. the laughter of my younger years visits less often now, yet in its place is something steadier. something that doesn’t leave when the music stops.

i walk through unfamiliar places and feel less foreign to them. perhaps because i have finally become less foreign to myself. peace, i’ve learned, is not a shelter built to hide from life. it is a way of standing in the rain without mistaking yourself for the storm. it is answering difficult questions before they become regrets. it is carrying responsibility without turning it into self-cruelty. it is learning that every choice leaves a fingerprint, and accepting that your hands are the ones touching the clay. people speak of peace as if it were a destination. i think it is closer to a posture. a way of holding yourself. a soft grip on what you cannot keep and a steady hand on what you can.

as someone who values patience, i think people are far more capable of transformation than they realize. a lot of us are just moving through inherited ways of thinking, repeating what we were taught until something forces us to look inward and relearn ourselves little by little. one step at a time.

the difficult part is that not many people speak openly about this process. most of the understanding comes through experience, reflection, and the willingness to confront yourself honestly. but when you meet people who understand that kind of growth, they become deeply important to you.

We weren’t noise. That’s what made it harder.

There was music in us, real moments, clear notes, almost whole.

But we never played through.

We circled the same parts

same lines,

same feelings,

like a record

worn down in the same place.

From a distance,

it sounded right.

But up close,

you could hear it—

the skipping,

the hesitation,

the way everything would catch

And still,

I stayed for the parts that played.

little did i know, it didn’t keep spinning for me, its just a record.

Even when they didn’t last.

Even when I knew

we weren’t moving forward

just repeating with better timing.

There was something in it

that felt like understanding

like only we could hear it

the way it was meant to sound.

And maybe that was true.

But understanding

doesn’t fix distortion.

And no matter how many times

we let it spin,

it always found

my mother is like the earth before humans touched it. peaceful even in her colder seasons. an angel made from oceans, soil, dry lands, and blooming things. i have always wondered how she does it. how someone can spend their whole life carrying others, guiding them, forgiving them, only to still rise each morning with softness in their heart.

you see, my mother has faith. and i came out like her, except i placed my faith into the universe instead. maybe that is why we understand each other so deeply. we both search for meaning in things larger than ourselves. we both keep going even when life has pressed its weight against our throats.