# Stay in Your Lane

Do not mistake my kindness
for an invitation.

I learned long ago
there is a difference
between being **kind**
and being **nice**.

Nice keeps smiling
while you cross the boundary.

Kindness tells you
where the boundary is
before you discover
why it was drawn.

So hear me clearly—

do not bring your storm
to my doorstep
and become offended
when the wind remembers
your name.

I do not manufacture chaos.

I return things
to their rightful owners.

Bring peace,
and you will find peace here.

Bring honesty,
and the door may open.

Bring your games,
your whispers,
your manipulation,
your carefully disguised malice—

and understand:

some doors
should remain closed.

You see,
I don't have many friends
in the three-dimensional world.

Never needed many.

But in the language of my poetry,
my company stretches farther
than flesh can travel.

I have walked beside shadows
without asking them
to become light.

I have sat with silence
long enough
to hear what moves inside it.

I have learned
that darkness is not always evil.

Sometimes darkness
is simply where consequences
wait quietly
for someone foolish enough
to knock.

And I will not threaten you.

Threats are noisy.

I will simply tell you:

**stay in your lane.**

Do not step off the path
just because you saw sweetness
growing beside it.

Sweet things have roots.

Roots know the grave.

And some gardens
are protected by things
you were never meant to meet.

Do not confuse
my unwillingness to fight
with an inability to stand.

Do not confuse
my silence
with surrender.

And never confuse
the softness of my spirit
with weakness.

I worked too hard
to become gentle.

There are pieces of me
that remember exactly
how not to be.

So bring no unnecessary drama
into my energy.

Carry no poison
to my table.

Send no darkness
toward my door
unless you are prepared
to sit awake wondering
why your own shadows
followed you home.

Because I will remain here—

creating,
breathing,
walking my strange little path
between heaven and dirt.

I do not need revenge.

I do not need war.

I do not need your fear.

I need only my boundary
and your understanding of it.

There is plenty of road
for both of us.

Walk yours.

I will walk mine.

But if you deliberately leave your path
to disturb my peace,

do not be surprised
when you discover

**my peace has teeth.**