I used to find peace
like an endgame before the epilogue,
a labyrinth to explore,
a fleeting pink overlay
that demanded flawlessness,
every task ticked, every quake stilled.

But lately
peace finds me
in the blur of small things.
On a shabby bench
by the grills at dawn,
where matcha warms my hands
and the world clams up.

In conversations that dawdle,
unhurried, like leaves falling down.
In the way I let old wounds ease,
no longer knocking on locked doors.

After a weekly obligation
I wander home under a vast sky
with stars glimmering like soft promises.
They whisper that light lives through,
firm, self-effacing, enough.

Some days
peace is choosing a track
that rustles like my heartbeat,
each note a cue
to bear only what soothes
and filter the noise
of a day that pulls too hard.

Peace is time pausing
just for me,
a breath that feels like mine,
a minute where the world’s yelling
softens because I allow it to.

It is not sublime.
It is not blaring.
But it is mine
and in its silence
I am whole.