a poem from a friend

The blanket arrives first — heavy as old loyalty,
its weave still holding the faint musk of dog, warm earth and furred sleep,
or the crisp, soap-scented ghost of laundry day,
a clean slate pressed against skin that once forgot how to feel.
You pull it higher, and the world narrows to this:
fibers kissing collarbone, a hush of cotton and memory,
the body remembering safety before the mind has time to argue.Then the walnut — small brown fortress, ridged and stubborn.
Your fingers find the seam, press,
and the shell yields with a clean, woody snap,
like a door long closed finally giving way.
Inside: pale halves curved like tiny moons,
buttery, veined with quiet sweetness.
The sound echoes in the chest —
a small thunder that says you are here, and this is yours to open.Natural light slips through the window like an old friend who never knocks,
gold and forgiving, pooling on the floorboards,
turning dust motes into slow-falling stars.
Corner lamps wake next — soft amber eyes in the dusk,
their glow not bold, but tender,
carving gentle hollows of warmth where shadows used to live.
The room breathes with you now,
light and shadow in quiet conversation,
no one demanding center stage.And your feet — oh, your feet —
encased in worn boots, soles kissing frost-kissed stone on the village path.
Each step a small vow:
I am held by earth.
I am moving through it, not fleeing.
The cold air nips at cheeks, but below, the ground is steady,
a rhythm older than thought:
heel, toe, heel, toe,
the body walking itself home,
one unhurried ommetje at a time.You don’t know what you look like anymore —
and that not-knowing is the sweetest freedom.
Perhaps a woman with lilac light caught in her hair,
Persian jewels under bare feet,
walnut dust on fingertips,
a blanket draped like a cape of quiet reclamation.
Perhaps nothing that needs a name.
Just someone who was numb once,
and now feels the weave, the crack, the glow, the step —
each one a verse in the long, slow poem of waking up.The inner journey carries on,
depths and heights rising and falling like breath,
and the everyday waits patiently,
a thousand small altars,
ready for your return