Offering Fruits

There is a hush before the storm,

not the kind that howls,

but the kind that folds its wings

and begins packing the sky,

quietly, deliberately,

like someone who has long since decided

what is worth carrying forward

and what will be left behind.

A branch once leaned toward the sun,

not out of hunger,

but because the warmth felt familiar.

Now it bends the other way,

offering fruit

to soil it no longer roots in

and still, the leaves clap like nothing has changed.

Not everything given

is a gift.

Sometimes it’s a soft undoing,

a silent reorganization

of value and memory.

Sometimes it’s just

dust being moved

from one forgotten shelf to another.

There was a time I would’ve cupped my hands

for what was left over,

thought the scattered stones

were sacred

because they were passed down

with a glance.

Now I know

that giving is not always generosity.

Sometimes it’s a gesture

to silence the conscience,

or worse

a keepsake meant for someone else,

pressed into hands

that were never meant to hold it.

I’ve seen the exchange

between the wind and the wheat

how one stands tall

and the other moves on,

never asking what stayed behind.

I’ve felt that too—

the ache of knowing

the most sacred parts of me

were never held with both hands,

only borrowed,

only visited

when silence became inconvenient.

And still,

I do not shout.

The moon does not wail

when the tide forgets to return.

The forest does not plead

when the fire takes only certain trees.

Instead, I gather what is still mine:

the quiet,

the marrow,

the way I never begged to be chosen,

only noticed.

I carry my name

in the language of stones,

in the rootlines of moss,

in the breath between knowing

and no longer asking.

Let the giving continue

to hands that clap too loud,

to arms that open only for applause.

I will remain

where the soil remembers my bare feet,

where the trees do not question

why I stayed so long.

And the next time the sky empties,

I will not reach for what falls.

I’ve learned to bloom

without offerings