Not Everyone
Not every soul I let inside,
Not every gaze is sanctified.
Not every voice is welcome near
The fragile rooms I cradle dear
Where youth still dances, bruised and bare,
And softness curls like whispered prayer.
Not everyone shall hear me speak
Of passing thoughts, both bright and bleak
Of trivial dreams and quiet fears,
Of half-spun hopes and untamed tears.
But some will listen, breath held tight,
As though my murmurs birth the night.
Not every heart unveils a truth
That calls me back to tender youth.
Where honesty strips all pretense,
And lies feel sharp and dissonant.
To meet a gaze so wholly clear
Is to forget the need to steer.
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Not every soul will earn the seat
Beside me in my calm retreat
To walk through wonder, dusk, and rain,
And find delight in the mundane.
To sit through silence, sip my skies,
And call it joy without disguise.
Not everyone becomes the flame
I greet before I speak my name.
The thought that wakes me in the grey,
The hue that stains my every day.
A pulse I feel through quiet air,
That colors all the moments there.
Yet somehow, one — so unforeseen
Passed through the veils I wove between.
With winds too soft to raise alarm,
They entered gently, bringing calm.
As though the walls I’d built in stone
Were made of breath, and not my own.
I told them tales I never told,
Of truths too raw, of griefs too old.
Of things I’ve locked in shadowed shelves,
Not shared with even closest selves.
And in their quiet, steady gaze
I found my guarded soul ablaze.
And in the quiet, soft and true,
I broke my silence just for you
If you ask me why I speak so free —
Because you’re not ‘everyone’ to me.
