I would not call the wound a teacher
while it is still open.
Some days ask for no wisdom,
only water, sleep,
and someone who does not leave.

Later, perhaps, I will look back
and find that pressure taught my hands
the weight they could carry,
and the weight they should refuse.

Failure left no blessing at the door.
It left evidence:
the weak joint in the plan,
the promise that could not bear weather,
the name I had mistaken for myself.

Delay gave me no answer.
It gave the roots another season
before the branches had to hold.
I could not see the work underground.
I know now that it was work.

Uncertainty kept one gate unlocked.
Through it came fear,
then choice,
then a life I could not have planned
from the safety of the old one.

I learned that being needed
can feel like being trapped;
that a title can become a room
whose door closes softly;
that competence earns burdens
unless judgment learns to choose.

So I stopped repairing the same wall
with better hands.
I studied the crack.
I moved the foundation.
I wrote down what the ruin knew.

Some losses never became useful.
I carried them because they were mine.
They changed the way I sit beside sorrow,
how slowly I speak,
who I make time to love.

I cannot say the universe sent the storm.
I cannot say I deserved it,
or that every broken thing
was secretly arranged for my good.

I can say what I built afterward:
a boundary where I once disappeared,
a method where I once exhausted myself,
a door where I once found a wall,
a place at the table for another tired person.

The road was never clear.
Still, my feet learned the ground.
Still, I chose what to carry.
Still, where no road remained,
I began one.