Real

we walk with heavy pockets
filled with answers
we haven’t even earned yet.

everyone is an expert
on lives they haven’t lived
and oceans they haven’t crossed.
we carry these maps
of places we’ve never been
just so we don’t have to admit
that we are lost.

it is startling, isn’t it?
how we can name the stars
and explain the gravity
that keeps us grounded,
yet we don’t know the rhythm
of our own heartbeat
when the room goes quiet.

we build walls of *i know*
to hide the fact
that we are all just
breath and bone
trembling in the dark,
hoping no one notices
the shaking.

put down the weight
of being right.
stop pretending the glass is unbreakable
when we are all made of cracks.

the world doesn’t need
more people who have it all figured out.
it needs the version of you
that isn’t afraid to stand in the sun
and say
*i don’t know*—
because in that honesty,
you finally become
real.
ss 5/4/26