Dual Sided Seams

 I come from two wolves—

one that hunts in shadow,

one that sings to morning light.

They do not battle.

They walk beside me,

heads low, eyes sharp,

waiting for the moment

I must choose which to follow—

and when to let both run.

You carry this too,

though you try to name one good,

the other shameful.

But even the pine tree

does not curse its crooked limb—

it simply grows toward light

with what it has.

I know your kind of fire.

Not from stories,

but from the men I watched

speak little

and feel deep,

like my grandfather—

who never named his pain

but built frames with calloused hands,

whose silence

was never weakness,

only a place he stored his storms.

And the women who bore me—

they didn’t flinch

when life turned bitter.

They taught me to braid grief

into bread,

to stir rage into stew,

to thread spitfire and steel

into the seams of my skirt

so I could stand

when no one offered to hold me.

So when I see you flinch

from your own wildness,

when you fear that the shadow side

makes you unworthy,

I do not step back.

I have danced

with both sides of my soul

under the same moon

and survived.

I am not afraid

of your storm-split voice

or the way your light

sometimes hides behind bark.

I was born for this—

to know when to touch

and when to wait.

To speak in wind tones

when others shout.

To see the good in you

even when you cannot.

You think I am too much—

but you forget

who shaped me.

I carry the grit

of every woman

who buried her fear

beneath roots and river stones

and kept singing anyway.

I carry the knowing

of a man

who taught me to watch the animals

and listen before speaking.

So if you wonder

how I still stand beside you

when you fold in shame—

it is because I know

that you were never meant

to be either storm or stillness.

You were made to be both.

As was I.

And even if we never say it—

even if you never call it what it is—

something deeper already has.

We are not just kindred.

We are remembered

by the earth,

by the wind,

by the prayers spoken

long before we were born.