The Advice I Keep Folding Away

There is a voice
that arrives like early dawn—
soft, persistent,
laying a pale hand on my shoulder
before ambition wakes.

It does not shout.
It does not argue.
It simply says:

Slow down.

And I nod,
as if I agree,
as if I have always believed in unhurried rivers
and trees that take decades
to perfect a single ring.

But by noon
I am sprinting again,
chasing the illusion that the sun
will set without me
if I stop to breathe.

The advice I ignore
is rarely dramatic.

It is small and ancient,
like moss
spreading patiently over a forgotten stone.

Rest.
Call them back.
Forgive.
Eat slowly.
Listen fully.
Leave before resentment hardens.

I carry these truths in my pocket
like smooth pebbles from a beach—
warmed by memory,
rounded by time.

I know their weight.
I know their shape.
Yet I keep choosing sharper stones
to hold in my fist.

Somewhere between my ribs
there is a tide
that recognizes the rhythm of surrender.

It rises when I overcommit,
when I say yes
to rooms that drain the oxygen from my lungs.
It rises when I scroll past my own fatigue
as if exhaustion were an ad
I could simply skip.

The sea inside me whispers:

You already know.

And I do.

I know that comparison
is a drought disguised as rain.
I know that rushing love
turns sweetness brittle.
I know that silence
can be kinder than explanation.

But knowledge
is not obedience.

I move through my days
like a comet pretending
it is not burning.

I say I am fine
when my constellations are misaligned.
I say tomorrow
to the friend who needed yesterday.
I say later
to the book waiting like a patient forest
at the edge of my attention.

The advice I ignore
does not come from strangers.

It comes from my own weather.

The tightness in my shoulders
is a cloud gathering.
The shallow breath
is wind forgetting its depth.
The insomnia
is a moon that refuses to set
because I have refused to listen.

Once, I stood by a river
and watched how it bent
around stone.

It did not argue with obstruction.
It did not curse the mountain.
It curved.
It softened.
It found another way
without losing itself.

The river did not need applause
for its wisdom.
It did not need urgency
to justify its flow.

It simply moved
in accordance with gravity—
that invisible advice
the earth gives everything.

And I knew then
that my own gravity
was trying to guide me.

Not toward more,
but toward alignment.

There is a difference
between growth
and inflation.

One is a tree reaching
because it trusts the sun.
The other is a balloon
swelling with borrowed air.

How many times have I mistaken
noise for nourishment?

How many nights have I stayed awake
feeding on artificial light
while the stars outside
burned in patient silence?

The advice I ignore
often sounds like this:

You do not have to prove
your existence
by exhausting it.

I hear it
when my body aches for stillness.
I hear it
when laughter feels forced
and I cannot remember
the last time I laughed
without measuring how it looked.

The voice says:

Be where your feet are.

And I,
ever restless,
glance at the horizon
as if presence were a trap
and not a home.

I have been taught
that urgency equals importance.

But mountains do not hurry.
They rise millimeter by millimeter,
carving skylines
without anxiety.

Stars explode
after millions of years
of silent becoming.

Even the seasons
take their time
to rehearse departure.

Why then
do I insist
on blooming in winter
and harvesting in drought?

The advice I ignore
is not glamorous.

It will never trend.
It will never clap for me
in a crowded room.

It sits beside me
when I want to send that sharp message,
and asks:

Is this aligned with who you are becoming?

It hovers
when I want to hold onto someone
who has already turned into memory,
and whispers:

Let the tide complete its withdrawal.

It breathes
when I want to say yes
for fear of being forgotten,
and reminds me:

Being chosen
is not the same
as choosing yourself.

I have built whole narratives
to outrun this knowing.

I call it ambition.
I call it resilience.
I call it loyalty.

But beneath the labels
is a simple reluctance
to trust ease.

Ease feels undeserved.

Yet the forest
does not apologize
for growing.

The moon
does not justify
its phases.

The galaxy
does not rush
its spirals
to impress a single planet.

And still,
I rush.

The advice I ignore
returns at night.

It slips through the cracks
of my distractions
and sits at the edge of my bed
like a quiet guardian.

It does not accuse.
It does not scold.

It opens its palms
and shows me the cost
of postponement:

the brittle friendships,
the half-written poems,
the body that carries more
than it was designed to hold.

It asks me
to consider that wisdom
is not about acquisition
but integration.

That knowing
without embodiment
is like owning a telescope
and never looking up.

So I look up.

Past the ceiling,
past the city’s artificial constellations,
into a sky
that has never needed my permission
to expand.

I see how small
my urgencies are
against the backdrop of eternity.

How brief
my resistance.

How generous
the universe remains
despite my delay.

The advice I ignore
is not trying to limit me.

It is trying to align me
with a deeper orbit.

It is asking me
to trust that slowing
does not mean stagnation.

That endings
are not erasures
but doorways.

That rest
is not weakness
but recalibration.

When I finally listen—
even for a moment—
something shifts.

My breath deepens
as if the ocean has entered my lungs.

My spine straightens
like a young tree
rediscovering the sun.

My thoughts soften
into clouds
that no longer threaten storm.

And in that listening
I realize
the advice was never external.

It was gravity.

It was tide.

It was starlight
traveling years
just to reach
the dark corners of my doubt.

I have been orbiting
my own truth
for a long time.

Pretending I do not see it.

Pretending I do not feel
its pull.

But gravity
is patient.

It waits
until surrender
feels lighter
than resistance.

And so I sit here now,
on the quiet edge
of another choice,
the familiar whisper
brushing against my awareness:

Trust the slow path.
Speak with kindness.
Leave what diminishes you.
Rest before you fracture.

I know this is right.

I have always known.

The river knows.
The mountain knows.
The stars—
ancient witnesses
to every human hesitation—
know.

And somewhere within me,
beneath the noise,
beneath the striving,
beneath the carefully constructed urgency,

there is a small, steady sun
that has been rising
without applause.

Waiting
for me
to finally turn toward its light
and walk
not faster,
but truer
into the vast,
unfolding
galaxy
of myself.