Success crowds the room.
You are no longer alone.
Old praise leans on the body,
teaches the hands to pause
before they tell the truth.
Every impulse
is weighed,
hammered into a calf of gold,
warm in the noon heat.
Then—
a sleeping animal.
A baby, folded into breath.
Or a toddler
climbing your lap,
touching your face
without a reason.
The noise breaks.
The rush loosens.
You freeze.
Not afraid—
recognized.
Something quiet
threads you back
to the one
who never learned the trick.
This is it.
Not the chase.
Not the shine.
The simple truth
we buried
under toys.
