Even horses have limits.
When a horse does not want
to engage with human interaction,
It does not appease the room.
It does not perform compliance
for the fragile comfort
of someone else’s ego.
It does not study anyone’s reaction
like an Oxford Vocabulary dictionary,
searching for the correct synonym
for obedience,
submission,
Or please still approve of me.
No.
The horse already understands
discernment.
It understands restraint.
It understands autonomy.
It understands the tacit language
of the body
before anyone asks it
to use the word
in a sentence.
It simply removes itself.
Entirely.
No apology.
No excessive explanation.
No polished little paragraph
offered as absolution
to people who have not earned
that kind of access.
It steps back
with fortitude.
It turns away
with quiet authority.
It chooses distance
without mistaking distance
for cruelty.
And there is something holy
in that refusal.
A horse does not betray its instinct
to make another person feel chosen.
It does not relinquish its peace
for the sake of being perceived
as agreeable.
It does not call its boundaries rude.
It does not shrink its knowing
so someone else can remain innocent.
The horse knows
There is a threshold
between tenderness
and trespass.
Between patience
and self-abandonment.
Between being open
and being handled
by what has not earned trust.
That is the lesson.
Not everything deserves
an intimate explanation.
Not everyone deserves
another invitation
into your spirit.
Not every hand reaching toward you
is carrying care.
Some hands carry entitlement.
Some carry projection.
Some carry the audacity
to confuse access
with love.
And I have learned, finally,
to stop confusing my softness
with an obligation.
I can be kind
and still be resolute.
I can be gracious
and still say no.
I can bless the chapter
and still refuse
to carry its debris
into my next becoming.
Because liberationIt
is not always loud.
Sometimes liberation
is a woman
standing in the light,
with her shoulders back,
her spirit intact,
and enough discernment
to say:
I am not available
for what requires me
to abandon myself
to be understood—
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