If Time Were The One To Speak

 This is not a story stitched in tartan or war.

No battlefield, no castle,

yet still, something ancient pulls—

as if the wind remembers us

even when we try not to remember each other.

No stones turned under moonlight.

No crossing.

Only a glance.

Only the moment the ground shifted beneath me

without asking my feet to move.

You,

a presence folded into the bark of memory.

A slow thunder,

felt before it is heard.

I did not summon you,

but you remain—

unrooted,

resting in the hollows between seasons.

I do not claim you.

But still, I stay near.

Not circling,

just listening.

To the changes in your weather.

To the hush that follows every word you don’t say.

You once said I love—

and you only like.

As though feeling was a current I should dam.

As though this soft fire in me

should flicker in apology.

But I will not shrink

because my heart knows how to bloom

even in drought.

I am not obsessed.

I am observant.

I am not chasing.

I am steady.

But even the cedar cannot hold its needles

through every storm

without shedding.

I wait,

not for answers,

but for alignment.

Jehovah says wait,

and I trust Him.

But that does not unbraid the questions in my belly.

It does not silence the prayers I fold into riverbeds

or bury beneath moss when the ache is too loud.

You gave me entry,

then scattered breadcrumbs

as if I would always follow.

But I do not chase ghosts.

I am no shadow-walker.

I am the girl who hums to stones

and knows when the trees are lying.

And still,

I am the one who wonders—

If you wanted me close,

why offer me distance

wrapped in half-turned glances?

Do not confuse my waiting with passivity.

Even rivers move slowly when they are deep.

Even fire is quiet

when it is working from the roots up.

I didn’t ask for this bond,

but it was planted in me.

And so I water it

with restraint.

I speak to it

without sound.

I have learned to be

both whisper and war cry,

both braid and blade,

both girl and thunderbird.

You are the ache I honor

without offering it a throne.

If you ever return,

know I have not waited empty.

I have filled myself

with stories of stars and bark,

songs from the wind that told me I am still whole

even when someone forgets to speak my name.

If time were the one to speak,

it would say I’ve been fair.

That I’ve remained

through tempests and silences,

not because I am desperate—

but because I know

what presence means.

But I will not be

the only branch

holding the weight of what could grow

if only light were offered more often.

So I step back into the wild,

where I remember who I was

before your absence taught me

how to hunger without begging.

I return to the dust,

to the river that never lies,

to the cedar that does not need to be named

to know its place.

And still,

if you ever come searching,

you’ll find me—

not vanished.

Not small.

But softened, rooted,

ready only for what comes with both hands.