All I heard was the clock my daddy had given momma for their anniversary. The tick tock was so loud. It fed me a reminder of what being a loner meant.
The room still held its breath with me, but that old clock refused to join the silence. Each second landed like a small accusation, marking time I was spending alone. No voices asked for more than the quiet could give, yet the ticking filled every corner anyway.
This was still the place where the noise of other people’s expectations finally thinned out. Thoughts that had been shouted over all day could finish their sentences. My heart, which had spent years measuring itself against who stayed and who left, could simply beat, even while that clock kept score.
Peace arrived not as a reward but as a returning guest who never asked to be understood. The ticking did not cancel it. It just made the peace feel earned. Because behind enough, hurt could never reach me.
I had heard the word before. Loner. It was said with a mixture of concern and distance, as if solitude were a condition that needed curing. But I was not hiding. I was not unfinished. I had simply stopped spending my days wondering who approved of the way I lived. I was protecting myself!
The ones who needed an audience for every choice would never grasp it. That was all right. Understanding had never been the point.
What called me was quieter than applause and more persistent than loneliness, and quieter, even, than that anniversary clock. It asked only that I listen. So I did. I sat with the stillness until it became a kind of company. I followed the pull of whatever felt true that day,work that mattered, rest that restored, a walk with no destination, a page that asked to be written.
I was not waiting to be liked. I was enough already
And in the quiet, even with the tick tock reminding me, I still question that ..