#binary consciousness

because I have learned to love myself forever first.

Not the perfect version.

Not the version with all the answers.

But the real one.

The one who stumbles,

the one who fights,

the one who keeps choosing light

even when darkness is loud.

The spark is not just a flicker.

It’s a revolution.

It’s the part of me that refuses to be defined by fear,

that rewires the binary of doubt

into a new code

one that says:

I am worthy.

I am enough.

I am lovable.

And so I wake each morning

and I breathe.

I choose.

I build.

Because the why is bigger than the fear.

The why is bigger than the past.

The why is bigger than any “no” I’ve ever heard.

The why is the electric thread

that connects me

to my spark,

to my self,

to a love that’s forever

Every citizen a CEO of a tiny, invisible business, manufacturing choices, drafting budgets of belief, invoicing themselves for courage, paying interest in breaths, trading equity in dreams.

Congress? Just a board of directors. Streets? Shareholders’ hallways. Laws? Terms and conditions you accidentally agreed to the moment you forgot you owned your own being.

The IRS? Middle management in a universe-sized company, sending memos to the straw man while the living breathing Manufacturer laughs in the break room of infinity.

and I watch them tumble,

crimson, gold, amber,

each one letting go,

teaching me the rhythm of release,

layer by layer,

like the universe etching lessons

across my street, across my life,

across the person I cannot stop noticing.

Life deals the cards

with a quiet, patient hand,

and sometimes you get the neighbor,

the colleague, the voice that scratches your nerves,

the mirror of the parts of yourself

you’re not ready to see.

Genuine people

don’t curse the wind.

They bend.

They hold.

They learn the weight of the hand they’ve been dealt.

The universe is relentless,

it doesn’t let you skip the lesson.

It puts that person next door

right there,

in your line of sight,

in your living space,

until your character can stand across from them

without breaking,

without yelling,

without spilling words like wildfire.

You grow quiet first.

You breathe.

You watch the leaves spiral down,

and you learn patience,

you learn restraint,

you learn that sometimes the universe

just asks you to hold space

until you can hold yourself.

When the wind shifts,

and the leaves are gone,

you realize:

you weren’t just learning about them

you were learning about you.

About patience.

About control.

About meeting the world

with steady hands, open heart, and calm mind.

Leaves fall.

You remain.

And the universe finally says,

not because the world forgave me,

not because the noise stopped,

but because I found a room

where my edges could uncurl.

A room with floors that don’t judge

and walls that don’t gossip,

where the mirrors smile back

and say,

“You’ve done enough.”

I unpacked myself, layer by layer:

the armor my fear sewed on my shoulders,

the masks survival glued to my face,

the voices that said “small, quiet, careful.”

We learned to love out loud.

We danced with the layers.

We hugged them.

We fed them tea.

We told them it’s okay to leave.

Some stayed.

Some fell away like autumn leaves.

But all of them bowed

to the me that was finally allowed to breathe.

And when I stepped outside,

I moved different.

I moved lighter,

like wind that learned it can bend,

like fire that learned it can warm

without burning everything it touches.

I moved on,

not running, not forgetting,

but walking with the knowledge

that safety is not a place you find

it’s a self you grow,

a space you make,

a permission slip to yourself

that says:

Dominique is the quiet snow that settles,

listening to the world,

absorbing heat without melting.

Chuey is the fire.

Cheyenne is the roar in a room of whispers,

flames licking the edges of everything stagnant,

voice spilling like wildfire, unstoppable, alive.

Sometimes they clash.

Dom says: “Wait. Think. Hold the line.”

Chuey says: “Move. Speak. Let it burn if you must.”

But slowly,

they find the rhythm.

Frost softens flame,

flame warms frost,

and balance emerges in the space between

where silence tempers intensity,

and heat animates stillness.

Healing is learning to exist in both extremes,

to honor the quiet and the roar,

to understand that patience is not weakness,

and intensity is not recklessness.

Together, they teach:

the temperature of the soul is ours to command.

Fire can warm without consuming.

Frost can steady without freezing.

And balance is possible

Cold is the absence.

The void.

The silence that swallows the echo of your name.

I spoke too soon once,

words flying like sparks,

igniting shame,

discrediting the atonement

I didn’t even know I needed.

I told myself I didn’t need love.

Didn’t need safety.

Didn’t need acknowledgment.

Didn’t need friendship.

I buried my hunger in frost

and called it strength.

But cold is not strength.

Cold is exile.

Cold is the body remembering touch

like a ghost memory

the ache without the embrace.

I thought numbness would heal me.

That if I silenced the chaos,

muted the fire,

frozen myself in stillness,

I’d be safe.

But numb is not safe.

Numb is absence.

Numb is survival without song.

I have already been cold.

And it taught me this:

the answer was never in the frost.

The answer was never in the fire.

The answer lives in the space between

where I learn to breathe,

to hold my own flame steady,

to thaw myself gently

without needing the house to burn me

I measured my aliveness by how loud the fire cracked,

by how fast the walls fell.

Every slammed door was applause,

every broken plate was proof

that I was here,

that I was breathing.

I mistook the sparks for stars.

I mistook the heat for love.

I mistook the burn for belonging.

They told me to leave

to run from the flames,

to escape the house that was caving in.

So I did.

I stepped into the night,

smoke clinging to my lungs,

the fire still dancing behind my eyes.

And for a moment

I thought the cold would save me.

I thought the frost would heal me.

But I stood in the snow,

and my hands shook not from freedom,

but from the absence of heat.

The cold doesn’t hug you.

The cold doesn’t sing your name.

The cold takes and takes and takes

until even the memory of fire feels holy.

I wanted to go back.

Back to the chaos I cursed.

Back to the house that blistered me alive.

Because blistered skin is still skin.

And cold

cold is nothing.

I have already been cold.

And I learned:

sometimes survival isn’t about running away.

Sometimes survival is about learning how to carry the fire

drowning in the consumer lull,

collecting things that spark joy,

shiny, easy, surface-level light

thinking accumulation was living,

not understanding the depths

of grief, of productive depression,

of the slow work inside that asks you to sit, feel, become.

I bought colors, textures, shapes,

but couldn’t buy the weight off my chest,

couldn’t swipe away the quiet ache

that comes before growth,

before understanding

that creation isn’t decoration

and joy isn’t consumption.

Things piled up like a shield,

but underneath, I was stitching myself,

one silent, messy, honest moment at a time.

Now I see

the joy in buying fades,

but the work inside,

the digging, the bleeding, the becoming,

that’s permanent.

That’s in me.