Peace, as Boundary [Narrated]

(for the man who flinched until he didn’t)

Some articles don’t demand a response. They plant something quieter. A resonance. A recognition. And later—sometimes days, sometimes longer—they surface again, not as argument or summary, but as poem.

I read a piece about why many empaths choose solitude. It described the quiet violence of absorbing too much—of scanning rooms, softening tone, bracing for someone else’s storm. It spoke to what happens when peace becomes not a preference, but a boundary. When solitude isn’t retreat, but reclamation.

I didn’t write a reaction. I wrote a poem. This one.

Peace, as Boundary

Some silences
return the breath—
held too long.

He reads a shrug
like scripture.
Catches a glance mid-air
and braces before it lands.

He mistook stillness for safety.
Silence for care.

He thought that was love—
to be the buffer.
To swallow mood swings
like pills meant for someone else.
To dim his own light—
so no one had to turn their eyes.
To be still
while others erupted.

Charm was the bait.
Then came
the redactions,
the revisions of guilt,
a love
that kept score
and made softness a fault.

Even a lighthouse tires
when no one seeks the shore.

He gave patience like currency.
Swallowed his truth
one syllable at a time.

He shrank his presence
so their quiet wouldn’t crack.
Left jokes unfinished.
Leaving the punchline
to die in his throat.

Still—he stayed.
Thought being needed
meant lessening himself
to fit the shape
defined by someone else.

But even that gave way.
Not with a crash.
With a quiet decision:
Not this.
Not again.

Now—
he shapes his silence.
Not out of fear,
but as both boundary
and stewardship.

The kettle sings.
His chest unclenches
at the sound of no doors slammed.
No sighs
strung tight like tripwire.

He no longer reads the room.
He writes it.

There’s no one to calm.
No moods to manage.
No eggshells.

The ground
forgives his weight.

He doesn’t rush into love.
He walks.
Measures each step
by how steady
he still feels after.

He wants love
like a porch swing.
Not a stage cue.
Just earth—
his bare feet meeting it.

Because this man,
this quiet man,
knows:
peace is not the absence of conflict—
peace, as boundary.

It’s a body reclaimed.
It’s a home.

He does not wait to be saved.
Just seen.
Just asked.
Just met.

Let them come gently,
or not at all.