The Cards They Keep Playing

 They sit at the table with a trembling hand,

pulling the same worn card from a deck of dust and delay.

“Life did me wrong,” they say—

and maybe, yes, it did.

But the smoke from that excuse

is too thick for a mirror.

I have walked with stones in my shoes

and songs I couldn’t always hear.

Born with silence sewn into my ears,

I learned to speak not because the world bent for me,

but because I chose to carve a path

through its thunder.

They say fire burns—

but fire also forges.

I am both white ash and red coal,

my roots tangled in forests and fields

where grandfathers taught the wisdom

of earth's hush and howl.

They never called themselves victims—

not even with scars that told their stories

in languages I had to learn.

Wind does not whine

when it meets resistance.

It bends, breaks branches,

moves mountains of sand,

and still presses on,

never blaming the cliffs for standing tall.

Water does not apologize

for seeking its way around the stone.

It simply goes—soft, insistent,

and always arriving.

I braided rivers with my will

when no bridge was ever built for me.

I danced with the current

while others refused to step in.

The ones who cry wolf

often never met one.

They wear the skin of victimhood

but hunt with the tools of apathy.

They forget that choices

are still choices—

even when made in a storm.

To blame the rain

and never their own steps

is to miss the lesson in the flood.

I have bled with both dignity and rage,

learned to trace the stars

not as signs of fate

but markers of direction.

Earth steadies me.

Air teaches me to move.

Fire reminds me to feel.

Water shows me how to let go—

but not before I’ve seen

my reflection clear.

So play your cards.

But know this:

If you refuse to own the hand you were dealt

and the moves you made—

don’t ask me to fold

just because you never learned to play.