A Friend Who Let Me Cry Without Solving Me

A Friend Who Let Me Cry Without Solving Me

For the tree, not the mountain.

He didn’t rush to rescue,

didn’t fix, didn’t force,

didn’t give me a ladder

or ask me to climb out.

He just sat

beside the ache,

beneath the rain,

while the restaurant line stretched on

and the memories knotted themselves silent.

He said,

Men are solutionists, my dear 

but I can learn

to just listen.

He watched me cry,

and made no altar of shame.

He cracked wonky jokes

and I smiled mid-tear,

a reflex of a soul remembering

joy was once mine.

He told me I was enough

not as comfort,

but as fact.

He saw my father in me,

the calling in my quiet,

and the sacred in the sorrow

I never tried to explain.

He didn’t speak of my love with jealousy,

only reverence.

He said:

The mountain was never meant to be the tree.

And the tree is not a substitute

only shelter.

And God?

God sends both.

When I danced,

he didn’t join.

He watched.

And when the music stopped,

he said,

Let your happiness belong to you again.

And just like that,

for one afternoon,

it did.