I’m Your Man

You saw me crying and decided that meant something about my worth,
like emotion is a verdict and not just weather passing through a face.
You said we were both losing, like you had authority there,
like I hadn’t already survived the part that scares you.

I’ve never been the mess you keep pointing at.
I’m the thing that holds when everything else is decorative.
I’m the wood under the paint, the weight that keeps the pier from floating off,
the place people lean without asking how it’s still standing.

When you drift off put your weight in my palm,
I know this water by heart.
Don’t search the distance for something truer
I’m the still point you keep circling.
I’m your man.

I don’t get carried away, I do the carrying.
I know how to read water, how to stay steady when the surface performs.
I’m not out here waving for help, I’m the one leaving the light on,
making sure something solid exists when everyone else is improvising.

You like to call it darkness when someone feels too much.
I call it range.
I call it knowing how deep things go before I step in.
That sadness you flinch at taught me how to move slow and exact,
how to turn weight into balance, how to let gravity work for me.

I ride the swell and taste the sugar in it,
even as the water darkens below.
Every pressure line, every cut in the stone
is how I learned my shape.

I don’t fall apart publicly for your entertainment.
I don’t need to be redeemed by anyone watching.
I already know who I am when no one’s clapping,
and that’s the version that lasts.

I bent where I could, I broke where I had to,
even saints learn by falling.
I did what a body does
when it’s trying to stay intact.

I’m built from pressure and patience,
from storms that didn’t erase me but clarified my outline.
I’m the kind of force that doesn’t announce itself,
I change the direction everything else has to take.

Even when your shadow pulls against me,
I stay solid in the undertow.
I don’t loosen my grip
I was built to hold here.

So don’t mistake my softness for uncertainty
or my silence for confusion.
I’m not asking who I’ve been.
I’m the reason the question comes up at all.