I have known how to place my hands near pain
since before I knew pain had an energy.
Eleven years old,
with no language for Reiki,
no teacher whispering the names of symbols,
no understanding of chakras,
currents,
fields,
or why sometimes my palms became warm
when someone near me was hurting.
I only knew
something inside me said—
be still.
Listen.
There is more being spoken here
than words can carry.
So I listened.
And somewhere between childhood
and becoming the man I am now,
I learned that healing
does not always arrive wearing white.
Sometimes it arrives barefoot.
Sometimes laughing.
Sometimes wounded itself.
Sometimes it sits quietly beside another soul
and asks for absolutely nothing.
And sometimes—
it recognizes someone.
Not by face.
Not by name.
Not by history.
By frequency.
A vibration enters the room
and something ancient inside you turns its head.
There you are.
And perhaps that is the strangest kind of romance—
when desire is not the first thing awakened.
Peace is.
When your soul does not immediately say,
I want you.
It says,
I hope life is gentle with you.
And something in me begins building walls
that were never meant to imprison you,
only shelter you.
A roof made of prayer.
Windows made of intention.
Doors that only you may open.
I would never cage something
I found beautiful.
I would rather become a quiet lantern
somewhere along its road—
bright enough to remind you
that darkness has edges.
I have spent years experimenting
with what intention can become.
How far compassion can reach.
How prayer changes
when the body becomes the altar.
How breath can carry an idea.
How love, stripped of ownership,
becomes something remarkably close
to medicine.
And I have learned something:
Protection does not always mean
standing between someone
and the world.
Sometimes protection means
helping them remember
the light they already carry into it.
So when my thoughts find you,
I do not imagine chains.
I imagine armor.
I imagine whatever goodness exists in me
stretching beyond the borders of my body,
not commanding your path,
not choosing your direction,
only whispering into the invisible:
May what is meant to harm you
lose its way.
May deception become uncomfortable
in your presence.
May the wrong doors close
before your hand reaches them.
May your intuition become louder
when something feels wrong.
May your heart remain soft
without becoming defenseless.
May you recognize love
that does not require you
to become smaller.
And if my energy ever reaches you,
I hope it does not feel like hands
trying to hold you.
I hope it feels like warmth
you cannot quite explain.
Like suddenly remembering
you are safe enough
to exhale.
Because perhaps souls do not always meet
to possess one another.
Perhaps sometimes
one recognizes another
because healing recognizes healing.
Flame recognizes flame.
The river recognizes rain
returning home.
And maybe that is why
something in me became quiet
when I felt you.
Not empty.
Quiet.
The way a cathedral becomes quiet
before someone prays.
The way the earth becomes quiet
beneath falling snow.
The way a man becomes quiet
when something beautiful
has finally made him stop searching
for words.
I cannot promise
that I understand everything
I have learned to feel.
I am still experimenting.
Still listening.
Still discovering how far
a loving intention can travel
without becoming interference.
But I know this:
If I care for your soul,
I will never ask it
to surrender its freedom
to prove that it cares for mine.
I will simply tend my little fire.
I will keep learning
how to turn sensitivity into shelter,
pain into pigment,
intuition into poetry,
and whatever strange light
has followed me since childhood
into something beautiful enough
to share.
Maybe that is what all of this has been.
Not madness.
Not mystery demanding an answer.
Just a lifetime
of collecting invisible colors
until I finally understood
what I was supposed to do with them.
So if you can feel something
between these words,
keep whatever heals you.
Leave whatever doesn't.
Nothing here requires belief.
Nothing here asks for worship.
This is simply one soul
showing another
what he learned to paint
with the things
no one else could see.
The doors are open now.
The lights are low.
My heart is hanging
on every wall.
Welcome to my art show.