As Real As Kindness

As Real As Kindness

Element: Earth 

In a world of ticking clocks

and muted, pixelated greetings,

you asked me not what I do,

but how I feel and the sky,

which I had carefully held together,

cracked open into tears.

I drank a river to stop the flood,

but it was too late

grief had found a voice.

Not for the mother who bore me,

but the one who never did and still, in her quiet widowhood,

wished me well

in spite of all else.

You could’ve turned away, paused the call,

rescheduled the moment, but instead,

you waited..

with kindness hanging in the silence like a lantern in a long corridor

I hadn’t known I was walking alone.

I chose to stay.

Not because I was strong, but because I come from a line

of people who kept walking through fire

because the bread still had to rise, and the fields still had to be sown.

Later, you gave me space to think, to shape, to be.

You never stood on the edges of who I am,

but entered the room

and placed a chair

in the heart of things.

There was a day you frailed, and I saw it,

though I’d never stood beside you.

And when I called help for you, it wasn’t from duty but from the same water you let me drink

on the day I almost drowned.

We are rivers, you and I.

Not for ourselves

but for each other.

Shade, not for our own backs,but for the weary passerby.

Fragrance,not to keep,

but to leave behind.

So this is not a poem for a title.

This is for the one

who remembered to ask, “How are you feeling?”

And meant it.

Poetic Introduction:

Some kindnesses do not come loudly.

They arrive like water when you’ve forgotten thirst.

And some people so patient, so steady, so kind

make you wonder if they are even real.

I ask him often, only half in jest:

Are you AI? Or are you real?

I need to see you to believe it.

This is for the one

who never gave me a reason to fear silence

only a reason to stay.