THE MARKS
She was a keeper, not a player.
You mistook her stillness for a slayer.
Her tongue, a clean brush dipped in ink,
Not to startle, not to shrink.
She does not blush—not for lack of heat,
But because her melanin and her peace are complete.
Mean? That is for the observer to decide.
She will not climb inside your mind to reside.
She knows correct. She knows rude.
She simply will not be pursued.

You may jest. You may remark.
But your currency? Outdated as the D-Mark.
So be clear as water, still as root,
Lest she place you at your mark, set you, and let you shoot.
She is not Lara Croft. No tombs to breach.
No vaults to crack, no walls to breach.
You need not dig deeper. You need not dig at all.
She is not buried. She is standing tall.

But if you approach as one might enter rain
Not to conquer it, but to be wet again,
No script. No shield. No secret debt.
No expectation you’ve already let.
If you arrive like a book already open,
Not demanding to be read, but hoping,
If you have, before she gave you reason,
Praised the harvest, not just the season,
Then you may begin to understand her art:
She builds not walls, but gathering space.
Her game is not pursuit, but grace.
She collects boldness, brilliance, light,
Beauty in the storm, beauty in the quiet night.

So understand your mark.
Not your target—your place.
Understand that to be seen by her is luck,
And to name that luck is a superpower.
You would not slay the wolf;
You would learn its track, its hour.
You would protect the soft thing growing in your chest
Because she did not wound it—she blessed it.

Her mark is not a sting. It is a signature.
Resilience, not armour.
Reverence, not performance.
Return, not pursuit.
Reward, not prize.

You are marked now.
Not claimed. Not caught. Not won.
You are marked the way a tree is by the sun:
Not burned but warmed into colour.
Not owned. Just known.

Make your mark.
Not to leave a scar.
But to prove you were here,
And understood where you are.