Reflection

Reflection

Across the scuffed wood of this quiet booth,
I slide a steaming mug toward your hands.
You look so small, swallowed by that coat,
Your eyes a restless map of practiced fear.
I watch you stir the sugar, dark and deep,
As steam rises between us like a ghost.

You do not recognize this weathered ghost,
Or see your own eyes hiding in the booth.
The silence between us feels wide and deep,
A distance measured not in miles, but hands
That learned too early how to hold their fear,
How to disappear inside a winter coat.

I want to reach for you, that heavy coat,
And tell you this, you’re not a hollow ghost.
You think you’re shaped by one unspoken fear,
Pinned to the corner of this narrow booth,
But something steadier lives in your hands,
Putting down roots, patient and deep.

The things you bury quietly, so deep,
The truths folded beneath that buttoned coat,
Will one day soften into clay for your hands.
You fear becoming only a ghost,
Fading before you ever leave the booth,
But courage grows in the shadow of fear.

Listen. There is a limit to the fear.
The water bites, but the lake is deep,
And eventually, you will leave the booth.
You’ll set down the armor of that coat,
Stop chasing the outline of a ghost,
And learn to greet the morning with bare hands.

I’ve come so far to sit and take your hands,
To show you we survived what felt like fear.
I am the life that followed your ghost;
The calm I found is steady, not just deep.
I stitched my own warmth into this coat,
Waiting for you to rise and leave the booth.

Don’t stay in the booth with folded hands.
Beyond the fear, the current runs deep;
Take off the coat, you are not a ghost.