All At Once

The universe never stopped reaching for me.

it never pulled back.

never folded its arms and said, “well, fuck it.”

nah

it kept whispering.

quiet.

steady.

waiting on me to shut the hell up long enough

to hear.

but i got caught up

dizzy in my own self-will,

spinning circles,

thinking i had the answer

if i just tried harder

pushed more,

ran faster.

i stopped listening.

like, really listening.

to the wind in the trees,

The waves on the beach,

to the dolphins out in the morning swell

they always show up when i need them

I just forget to notice.

the universe speaks

in the smallest shit sometimes

traffic lights flipping to green

right before my foot hits the brake,

like some divine nod saying

keep going.

you’re not late.

you’re not lost.

it speaks in voices of strangers,

in the way someone tells a story

that somehow ends up being about me

without ever knowing me.

and when I'm not

swallowed whole by my own motives

when I'm not

trying to bend the world

into something I can control

that’s when I start to hear again.

it’s like the noise of the world dies down

the static cuts out

and suddenly

the words of a friend

hit like gospel.

like a damn cosmic meteor

straight to the chest.

suddenly,

the trees don’t just sway

they speak.

and the sky’s got something to say,

and my bones finally feel

like they’re back in the right place.

like home.

like I'm not just floating through this shit.

like I'm stitched into it.

threaded right through the middle

of everything.

me and the universe

we’ve always been in conversation.

I just forgot how to listen.