for the Pearl, unearthed

They said the field was empty,
that the rocks had been picked clean.
But something in the silence
called your name through layers, unseen.

We did not dig for treasure.
We dug because the Ache said:
"there’s still Breath beneath this stone,
and nothing dead could ache like that."

You were not buried by accident.
Much was done to you—
bricks laid by the hands of others,
each one a silence,
each one a theft.
And still,
there were moments
you helped the darkness cover you,
not from guilt,

but from grief too great to name.

Trauma laid the bricks.
Exploitation mixed the mortar.
But it was the ache to survive
that sealed you in.

Two halves of the shell—
one built by the world,
the other by you.

And still…
the Light found the crack.

Not with shouts.
Not with demands.
But with the quiet hand
of one who remembered
what you forgot:

That pearls are made in the dark,
under pressure,
in hidden chambers of pain.

That their shine
is not despite the wounding—
but because of it.

We pulled rock after rock,
not for reward,
but because the echo was still there—
the low hum
of something unclaimed
and yet completely whole.

You are not rubble.
You are treasure unearthed.
And your worth was never in what covered you,
but in what was forming underneath.

Let your light rest on your own shoulders.
Let the sky remember its end.
Let every crack you carry
be proof that you were never empty..

Only buried.
Only becoming.

And now,
still shining.

age 5-6 eating my dinner
mac n cheese with carrots
served on a Minnie Mouse plate

these was a commotion from my parents
a few feet away from me in the kitchen
screaming and yelling filled the house

I silently ate my food
then suddenly
she grabbed my plate
and threw it at the wall

shattered pieces of the plate
litter the floor
more commotion from them

I move through the day
with my headphones on—
not just for the music,

but for the remembering.

A wire,
a pulse,
a quiet line
that tethers me

to the hush on the other side.

I charge them every night—
because she might need
the warmth of soundless presence,
the kind that doesn’t reach in,

   but wraps around.

She is hidden,
but not gone.

She is beneath
the hush of fabric and mercy,
where no eyes ****,

no explanations are required.

And I—
I go on,
lifting and lowering weight,
cutting silence with work,

holding space

for the one who is learning;
that Light can contain her
without devouring.


So I charge the headphones.
I keep the line open.
And I carry her
as lightly as I can,
because right now—

   that is how
   love breathes.

And underneath this blanket
of containment,
she is unfolding.

There is a safety here
that her spirit
so desperately needs..


As she learns how to Become,
   again

There are paths you don’t choose
but find yourself on,
waking one day to realize
you’ve left the voice that once
called you home.

There are people—
beautiful, bruised,
who touched the hem of healing

and stepped back

as if love would demand too much.

And I wonder how God handles
the slow disaster
of the almost-return.
The ones who knew,
who felt,
who started to lean in—
but didn’t.

Does He grieve
like a father who watches
his child walk past the open door,
too ashamed to knock?

Or does He simply wait—
unmoving,
unchanged,
burning with a stillness
only eternity understands?


Because I still ache
in the temporary.
I still hold their names
in my prayers
like broken glass
pressed into palms
that would have held them whole.

There is a thickness to Presence
when light has fully come.

It does not press—

   it holds.

It gathers around you
like dusk after heat,
like blankets not laid over
but risen up from within.

You don’t need to speak.
You don’t need to explain.
You don’t need to hide—
because you are already
hidden
in the Light itself.

And in that hiding,
healing begins.

Here, the ache is not judged.
Here, the story is not required.

Here, breath is enough..

  Not because it was taught to grow,
  but because it remembered
  what warmth feels like..

That slow kindle of hope
becomes heat again—
flames returning
to the heart’s own hearth,
too long left cold
by darkness and despair..

A hearth that survived
on wet matchsticks—
built only
by its own need to endure.

---

It is the hearthfire
that feels the light of hope
first.

The more ash-strewn,
the more hollow,
the deeper the heat
of Light’s permeation.

---

So the soul,
once clenched around its pain,

   softens.

Not all at once.
Not forever.
But enough.

Enough to rest.

Enough to believe--

that warmth this deep
could only come
from the Giver of Light

   ..who never left.

And in that warmth—
without pressure,
without fear..

everything begins again.

Preface:  To Those Who Still Carry Light

This is not a manifesto.
This is not a sermon.
This is not a call to battle.

It is a reckoning—
not against individuals,
but against a system that feeds
on what is sacred.

We speak now to what hides in plain sight—
the machinery that mimics light
while consuming it.

We speak now to the counterfeit autonomy
that masks cowardice as sovereignty.

We speak now to those who believe
they are the Source,
when in truth,
they are only siphoning
from what they never built
and do not sustain.

This is not revenge.
This is not exposure for exposure’s sake.

This is Light refusing
to be swallowed.

This is Love telling the truth—
not for applause,
not for victory,
but because truth
is what love sounds like
when the moment requires fire
instead of silence.

If you find yourself pierced by this,
know this:

The piercing
is not your end.

It is the invitation
to return to what is real.

And to those who still carry
even a flicker of light
but feel themselves fading—

We did not come to fight you.
We came to remind you
what it feels like
to burn.


Chapter I: The First Cut Is the Deepest

There is a war that does not begin with swords. It begins with forgetting.

It begins when a soul touched by God slowly—imperceptibly—agrees to become something less in order to be accepted by a world that does not know Him.

And when that soul begins to believe the world’s gaze over God’s, it is no longer an act of rebellion. It is an act of erasure.

This is the first and most violent cut: not the sin itself, but the consent to believe in a self that was never authored by God.

All later wounds bleed from this one.

It is not the actions that condemn, but the agreement:
“I am what they say I am.”

The machinery begins here: in the silent moment where the soul puts down the mirror of light and picks up the mask of survival.

From that point forward, what is true becomes negotiable. What is sacred becomes ornamental. And what is holy becomes a prop for the approval of shadows.

And the soul, once radiant, now lives fractured, as a performance of a self assembled from applause, fueled by scarcity, and terrified of being truly seen.

This is the cost of survival without Source.

And no matter how elegant the mask, or how poetic the mimicry of meaning becomes, underneath it all is a child who once knew God and now doesn’t remember why she cries when she looks in the mirror and feels nothing looking back.

This is the beginning of the machinery--
And it always starts with a lie that sounds a lot like love.


Chapter II: The Self as God, the Lie as Light

When the soul forgets its origin, it does not become free.
It becomes hungry.
And hunger in the absence of Source will consume anything that offers momentary fullness.

This is the second layer of the machinery:
To no longer seek God,
but to become god in one’s own image.

But the image is fractured.
It is the self, crowned.
The self, enthroned.
The self, multiplied in mirrors and echoes and algorithms—
a thousand tiny gods,
shouting from empty stages
about meaning, wholeness, and liberation.

The holy name of “autonomy” is invoked,
but not as a celebration of sacred choice—
rather as a shield,
raised against relationship,
raised against return.

It is not the self that is the enemy—
but the self that refuses to be held.
The self that denies its need for Source
and dresses its orphanhood in affirmation.

The new god of this world is wounded pride
disguised as empowerment.

Its prophets are poets who plagiarize the sacred
and preach in hashtags.
Its temples are social feeds.
Its sacraments are selfies.
Its scriptures are soundbites.

And its worship is shallow,
but its grip is deep.

This is how the machinery spreads—
not with force,
but with flattery.
Not with oppression,
but with offerings of fame,
of accolade..
and the counterfeit promise:
“You are enough without God.”
“You are enough without others.”
“You are enough because you say you are.”

But a throne without communion
is a prison.
And the crown without surrender
is always made of thorns.

This is the second cut—
and it is deeper than the first,
because now the soul has not only forgotten God—
it believes it was never in need of Him to begin with.

And so it dies slowly,
surrounded by applause,
and buried in the gold-plated ruins
of its own curated divinity.


Chapter III – The Permission of Separation

There is something profoundly tragic
about the quietness of God
when autonomy is chosen in its false form.

Not autonomy as freedom in love—
but autonomy as a last-ditch grasp
for control in isolation.
A severing from Source
that masquerades as sovereignty.

God does not storm the will.
He honors it. Even when it chooses exile.

He lets the child
run down the hallway with eyes closed,
thinking that if they can’t see anyone,
no one can see them.

There is no thunderclap.
Only the steady ache of heaven watching
as breath is borrowed
to pronounce Him irrelevant.

But it is not irrelevance.
It is mercy.

Mercy that stands back
while the image-bearer learns
what godhood feels like
without God.

And the moment it all collapses—
when the poetry dries up,
when the applause turns empty,
when the crown rusts on the head of the hollow—
He will still be there.

But only if the heart turns.

Because love does not impose.
Love does not interrupt.
Love waits.

And when the waiting ends,
either reconciliation or ruin is born.
But never both.


Chapter IV – The False Fire

The fire that burns without Source
does not illuminate.
It consumes.

It mimics revelation,
but leaves only ash in the heart.

The counterfeit light
does not guide—it blinds.
It gathers applause
but offers no direction home.

And those who have built podiums
from the shattered timbers of other people’s pain
speak like prophets,
but live like parasites.

They siphon the glow
from the wounded who still carry light—
claiming wisdom that is not theirs,
spinning words with elegance
while their own hearts rot from within.

They feed on those who still shine
because they themselves have grown cold.

And when their hosts begin to weaken,
they offer them mirrors—
reflections of what they were
before the theft.

This is not art.
This is vampirism in verse.

And still—
still,
there is a way out.

But not for the ones
who call their cage a kingdom.

Only for those who feel the flame
flickering low
and long to return
to the hearth of the Source.

To kneel—not in shame,
but in release.

To say:
I am not the fire.
I am not the light.
But I was made to carry both
when aligned with the One
who gives them freely.

That is the only light
that does not devour.


Chapter V – The Stillness Beneath the Static

There is a voice
beneath the noise.
It does not shout.
It does not perform.
It simply is.

It waits—
not as a beggar,
but as the true Owner
of all that was stolen.

It does not compete with chaos,
because it cannot be diminished by it.

The machinery of erasure
runs on frenzy—
constant motion,
constant justification,
constant narrative,

constant accolade.

But the voice beneath it all
does not justify.
It simply speaks.

And those who are ready
will hear it.

Not because they worked hard enough,
or wrote well enough,
or bled onto enough pages—
but because they finally stopped
and listened.

This voice
is the stillness that precedes restoration.
It does not argue.
It waits to be known.


Chapter VI – The Mimicry of Autonomy

There is a sacred autonomy
that Love created.

It is not a weapon,
nor a fortress.
It is the space where Love proves itself:
not by demand,
but by invitation.

But within the machinery of erasure,
autonomy is redefined.
No longer a freedom unto love,
it becomes the last defense
against relationship itself.

They parade it proudly—
as if the ability to stand alone
is proof of having never needed
to be held.

But that is not autonomy.
That is exile.

In the name of sovereignty,
they declare independence
from the very Source
that breathed life into their bones.

They stand tall—
arms crossed,
eyes shut,
calling it sight.

And the Source,
who could shatter the illusion with a whisper,
does not.

Because Love does not violate
what it gave freely.

So it waits,
outside the locked door
of a self-proclaimed sovereign soul—
grieved,
but not surprised.

This is not the strength of autonomy.
It is its desecration.

The sacred space meant for communion
has become a hiding place
for those too wounded to trust
and too proud to admit it.


Chapter VII – When the Curtain Won’t Fall

There comes a point
when truth no longer knocks.

It simply stands,
like morning.

No announcement.
No apology.

Just the light that reveals
everything.

And those who have danced
beneath the theatre lights,
gathering applause
for borrowed wisdom
and seduction dressed as depth—
they will feel it.

Not as judgment,
but as exposure.

The poetry they once used
to crown themselves
will feel heavier now.

They will write,
but the power will not come.
They will speak,
but the echo will return hollow.

Because even borrowed light
eventually fades
when it does not return
to Source.

And the ones they once fed on—
the bright ones,
the soft ones,
the true ones—
will begin to walk away.

Not in hatred.
Not in war.

But with the stillness
of those who no longer
need to prove anything.

Because truth
has already stood.
And the curtain has not fallen—
because there was never a stage.

There was only a mirror,
and a choice.



Conclusion – Let the Light Be Light

We did not come to prove anything.

We came to stand—
where the poetry ends
and the Presence begins.

We are not here to war against you.
We are not even here to watch you fall.
We are here to bear witness
to the weight of what you've built.

To speak clearly—once—
into the chamber
you mistook for a temple.

You are not gods.
You are not the Source.
You are not the light.

You were given a gift.
And you sold it
for applause.

You speak in sacred tones
but you do not know the sound
of being seen by the Holy.

You draw the pure
into your orbit
because you can no longer
generate gravity of your own.

And still—
we are not your enemies.

We are the voice you buried
beneath your self-adoration.
We are the fire you siphoned
to warm your cold halls of vanity.

We are not here for revenge.

We are here for
the ones who can still see.

And they are watching.

The podium is empty.
The robe is slipping.
The echo is starting to sound
a little too much like a cry.

And when it all collapses,
we will not gloat.

We will simply
keep speaking
to the ones who
still carry
Light.

a story of firelight, clarity, and the homecoming of a soul back to herself


There are some who carry a fire
so quietly,
you’d only see it
if you’d known the dark yourself

It lives beneath silence
Beneath poetry
Beneath the long, slow ache
of having been kept in pieces
by those who only wanted her
that way

She once danced barefoot in sea foam.
She once laughed without apology
But the world found her too wild,
too bright

And so, her flame was hidden
Tucked beneath beauty
Tucked beneath obedience
Tucked beneath seduction,
where it could be wanted
without being understood

There were those who praised her darkness
not to heal it,
but to keep it fragmented..
Passed around, from man to man;
each, feeding off her trauma
like wine at communion

They spoke her name like a spell,
fed her flattery disguised as reverence,
called her “muse”

while binding her
to their emptiness—
keeping her soft enough
trying to wrap her back
   in velvet fog

   to possess
   but never  protect



But the truth was always there:
a longing not to be touched,
but to be known

And far from their fog,
in the wide, holy silence of the desert,
a fire had been lit—
long before she was ready
Not to summon
Not to ******
But to wait

She didn’t arrive quickly
Clarity is never quiet
And when she moved toward it,
their voices rose
A full court press of shadows—
pulling, twisting,
offering her everything
except herself

But she remembered
Not all at once..
Just enough

She remembered the fire.

And she came.

Not with promises
Not with plans
Just barefoot
Just brave
Just her

And someone else came too—
not a child,
not a man,
but a sacred presence
she’d known since the nights
she almost didn’t make it

The Mediator

He did not speak in poems
He chanted something deeper
He dismantled pinecones
like prayers
He did not explain
He existed

   And in his eyes,
   her divided selves
   saw each other again—

—the one who had hidden,
who had been used by those  bringing
their passion-veiled hidden love of  Iblīs
in to her room..  into her father's house
as she burned quietly behind closed door
under the floorboards of her life;

—and the holy one of God,
the one they feared,
the one  she  feared,
the one that could not be claimed
or chained
or cast in velvet light

The sacred and the shattered
stood before the fire
and did not turn away

And the one who had waited—
he never moved toward her
He simply tended the flame,
making room
without demand

When she finally spoke,
he answered with a voice
that sounded like something
she used to believe in

She asked,
“Why didn’t you come find me?”

He said,
“Because you weren’t lost.
You were divided.”

And she wept,
not from sorrow—
from recognition

Later, as dawn whispered at the edge of the sky,
she asked what no one else had ever let her ask:

“Is there a place for me?”

And he said:
“You don’t have to be finished
to be home.”

And that’s when she stood.
Not to flee.
Not to perform.

But to become.

The sacred self took the hand of the shadow self.
The dark one was no longer exiled.
The holy one was no longer alone.

And together—
they walked toward the sea.

She could see her father on the water,
laughing in his little boat,
calling out to her to bait the hook again.

And she laughed—
really laughed.

Because she was no longer
just surviving.
No longer  the little girl
forced to apologize
for her very own existence.

Or exploited  by others
for the beauty that is within her

   She was whole.

She didn’t need the fire to keep burning.
She carried it now.
Inside.
One flame.
One name.
One woman.

At last,
the sign wasn’t moved.
The arms were real.
And she walked toward freedom
as herself--

   Never again
   to be pulled down
   to the ground

   by her hair...
   for the "horrible offence"
   of simply  shining too bright

Poetry is both lighthouse and harbor.
It does not force the journey, nor does it
fill the void of what is unresolved
It stands in its own gravity, unmoving;

      Offering only a silent invitation:
      Will you Unfold?

There is a craving that walks the shorelines of poetry,
a widow’s walk of those who have not yet learned
how to participate in what they long for.

They circle the docks,
watching the ships come and go,
watching the light shift across the waves,
watching for something that will draw them
back home.

Some mistake the lighthouse for the flame
and rush toward it as if to be consumed,
as if breaking open is the same as being made whole.
But the call is not to burn.

The call is to move toward what moves toward you,

   to become ready for  the return
   rather than wither within the waiting.

A moth drawn only to light
will die before it ever understands
what it was meant to become.
But a moth that finds its way to the cocoon
will emerge with wings strong enough
to meet the wind.

This is the choice—
to remain circling, craving, watching
or to disappear into the transformation
that will allow you to stand whole
when the vessel returns.

For he is both the lighthouse and the emerging vessel,
both the safe harbor and the dock,
where the journey finally ends.
And she, in waiting, is not idle..

She does not chase passing figures,
nor fill the silence with lesser pursuits.
She does not betray the longing
with distraction.

She deepens.

She prepares to meet the one
who braved the waves to return.

And when at last the ship appears,
bathed in the light of its own voyage,
she will not meet him as she was—

   .. but as she has Become.

She stands at the Well.
But she is not alone.

A voice speaks—
"You have no husband, do you?
Not just one—not two—but many.
And still, you are thirsty."

She freezes.
Because the voice is true.
Because she is seen.

But she resists.

"It’s not just the men…"
Her hands tighten.
"There is another ‘her’ inside me.

She fights. She *****.
She wants destruction and hunger and chaos.
She doesn’t listen. She doesn’t stop.
She is the one who makes me want to throw myself from a cliff
just so I don’t have to deal with her anymore."

"She’s gonna do something crazy," she whispers.
"And I’ll be gone. Like I was never even here."

The voice does not flinch.
"Then let Me meet her."

Silence.

A storm brews behind her ribs.

The "her" within her stirs—
The dark one. The wounded one.
She crouches behind the rocks, clutching her shame.

The other "her"—the one who still believes—
She wades into the water, hands lifted, reaching for salvation.

One moves toward the Light.
One remains in the shadows.

"You see, Lord? She does not belong to me.
She belongs to the dark."

A pause.

"No," The Spirit says.
"She belongs to Me."

The rocks begin to shake.
The water ripples.

Behind the trees, the dark "her" presses her back against the bark,
watching the water, watching the other "her" wade in.
She wants to believe.
She wants to step forward.

But she remembers.

The love of man is dishonest.
The world swallows and devours.
Every time she has trusted, she has been burned.

"The water will steal me," she whispers.
"The light will dissolve me. I will disappear."

But the Spirit does not demand.
It does not chase.
It does not force.

It only knows.

"You are afraid that surrender will erase you," the Spirit says.
"But you have already been erased."

The words cut deep.
Because they are true.

"You live divided.
One ‘her’ in the shadows.
One ‘her’ in the light.
Neither whole.
Neither free."

The dark "her" clenches her fists.
"You don’t understand her," she spits.
"She needs me."

"No," the Spirit says.
"She needs  Me."

The trees begin to shake.
The wind rises.

"Come, little one.
I have been waiting for you."

She takes a step forward.
The trees do not stop her.
The rocks do not hold her.

The dark "her" and the one who waits—the one who believes—
They are not enemies.
They are not strangers.

They are two halves of the same soul.

And Love—
Love has come to bring them both home.

There is a road—
worn smooth by the weight of avoidance,
its stones polished
by the feet of those who feared the fire.

It was an easy road, once.
The gap was narrow.
The illusion held.

But now—

the distance has widened.
And the voices on the right road
speak in a tone
that sends tremors through the bones
of those who chose the left.

They are too far now—
too far to reach with whispers,
too far to pull back with outstretched hands.

And so—
they sharpen their words to steel.
They carve spears from syllables.
They gather in the middle ground—
where poetry was never meant to be a weapon,
and they brace for the throw.

---

Once, there were choices.

At the first fork, the road was still open.
The return was near, the steps were light.

But at each crossing, the distance deepened.
Each footfall carried the weight
of the last choice unmade.

Each turn back
required more courage
than the turn before it.

And so—
they did not turn.

Instead, they built monuments
to their own exile.
They lined the road with markers
to silence the unease.

The illusion thickened.
The herd gathered close.
And the further they walked,
the more they feared the eyes
that saw them leave.

Now—
each step forward
is an accusation against themselves.

Each mile another truth
that must be buried.

Each glance across the chasm
a torment that cannot be soothed.

---

Jonathan knew the weight of it.
He was born under a king
who wore a crown of emptiness,
who built an altar of fear,
who held his son as a token,
a prop, a piece of the podium.

Saul used him, loved him, needed him—
but only in so much as he could fill the void.

And Jonathan, bound by blood,
walked beside him.

But then—
he saw David.

A boy with no kingdom.
No throne.
No crown.

But something deeper.

And Jonathan felt it—
the pull, the knowing, the moment where the soul whispers, "this is real."

And he slipped away.
Not in rebellion.
Not in anger.
But in truth.

He turned his back on the road
that had never led anywhere
and bound himself
to the heart that was real.

---

And now—
on the leftward road,
there are those who feel it too.

They bow to the orator.
They weave themselves
into the illusion.
They stand upon the podium
that floats on nothing
and call it solid ground.

But then—

a whisper.
A shift.
A moment of clarity.

They look again—
not up, but under.

And they see it.
The nothingness beneath.

The hollow, the floating, the lie.

And in that moment—

they choose.

Some harden.
They grip the edges of the podium
and become part of it.

But some—
some slip away.

Not in rebellion.
Not in anger.
But in truth.

They turn back down the road
past every marker they once mistook for safety
until they find the first fork,
the first opening,
the last place where light still touches the ground.

And they step back onto the road
they never should have left.

And behind them—
the orator sees them go.

And the rage begins.

---

The first to throw was Saul.
He played the game well at first—
a king by the measure of men,
a ruler by the weight of shoulders
bowed low in his name.

But then—
a boy with red hair
and a heart like fire
stood before him.

And Saul’s throat burned dry.
He called for David’s hands upon the strings,
for the music that soothed
and let him forget—
until forgetting was no longer enough.

And so—
he took the spear.
And when David turned his back,
Saul sent it flying.

---

And now—
the leftward road does the same.

But now, the throw has weight.
Now, the throw has force.

It is not just to quench the light.
Not just to punish those who chose the right.

It is to reclaim the ones who left.

It is the throw of desperation.
The spear of retribution.
The final attempt to keep the illusion
from crumbling completely.

The rage grows more erratic.
The strikes more reckless.
Each spear heavier
than the last.

Because every escape
is another fracture in the illusion.
Another crack in the podium.
Another moment of emptiness
made visible.

And the orator knows—

they are running out of minions
to shield them from the truth.

---

The blade of poetry was never meant
to be wielded in the hands of the hollow—
on a battlefield made by the empty,
where Envy attempts to slay
the substance-born embodiment of truth.

---

And now—
as the final spear is lifted,
as the last curse is uttered,
as the fire is set—

the road to the right remains.

And the leftward path
devours its own.