Threshold Walker

I used to stand real close to her skirt.
Not ‘cause I was little… but ‘cause the world felt big and loud, and I didn’t know which parts of it were safe yet.
I’d peek out just enough to see.

Watchin’.
Listenin’.
Feelin’ everything before I ever took a step. Sometimes I wanted to go out there… but my feet would stay put.
So, I learned how to be still. How to read the air. How to know things without anyone sayin’ them out loud.

Folks might’ve thought I was shy. But I wasn’t.
I was waitin’.

Tonight… I didn’t have no skirt to hide behind. But I didn’t need one either. She walked in… and I walked with her. I could feel my heart beatin’ fast at first, like it didn’t know if we ought to be there.

But then… there was that drum.
And it sounded like somethin’ I already knew.  Not from here…
but from somewhere deep and old.
So I closed my eyes.

And instead of lookin’ for danger…
I just listened.

And my body got real still…
but not scared still.

Safe still.

I didn’t have to peek no more.

I was already in it.

And nobody told me to hush.
Nobody made me feel small.
Nobody needed me to be anything but there.

So I stayed.

And I felt it all the way through me…
like I finally stepped out where I’d been lookin’ all along. When I had closed my eyes, it was there in my chest. I saw her walk that holler… banging that drum.

I ain’t hidin’ anymore.
But I ain’t gone neither.
I’m still right here.
Just not behind the skirt.
Beside her now.
Walking.

Through thresholds.

I used to stand at the edge of things…
doorways… rooms… voices…
waitin’ to see if it was safe. I knew where the line was, even when nobody else said it out loud.
One foot here.
One foot not yet.

But now… I ain’t just peeking no more.
I step.
Slow sometimes.
Careful still.
But I step.
There’s a feel to a threshold.
Like the air changes.
Like somethin’ is watchin’ to see if you’ll come on through.
Not to stop you…
just to witness.
I carry what I learned behind those skirt tails.
How to listen.
How to feel.
How to know.
But I don’t stay there anymore.
I walk.
With her.
With all the ones she’s held.
With all the ones she’s loved.
Not crowdin’ me…
just… there.
Like a quiet kind of company.
And when the drum sounds…
I don’t freeze.
I don’t hide.
I don’t wait.
I walk.

Through.

This was written as the 9-year-old version of myself. The shadow I often hold in my arms and comfort. The one that was told to be seen and not heard.