your walls kept out the good too

you do not ask for help. you take over the plan so no one can let you down inside it. you keep everyone at a careful arm's length, and you call it independence, and mostly it is. but the walls that kept out the danger are keeping out the warmth as well.

you built them for good reasons. somewhere, needing someone went badly, so you decided to need no one. it worked. it kept you safe and a little alone.

the hollyhock grows tall against a wall and then, quietly, becomes a shelter itself. strength that learned to open. a place things can rest, without the gate being torn off its hinges.

letting someone in is not the same as letting your guard collapse. you can be a harbor: safe, steady, and reachable, with a way in for the people who have earned it, including yourself.

hand one small, heavy thing to someone today, the kind you planned to carry alone, and let the world not end. that is a wall becoming a shore. daisy is already inside the gate, so there is nothing here to defend.