Don’t Skip the Silence
For the Enneagram Sevens
I am the spark between moments
the laughter lodged in life’s lungs
The high note before the hush
The horizon that keeps moving
They call me
The enthusiast
The visionary
The escape artist
But, beneath the fireworks,
there’s a silent void I’ve learned to dodge.
Blind spot like a back alley mirror
I vanish when pain speaks plainly.
I was taught early
that sorrow overstays its welcome
and joy must be chased before it chokes.
That’s my core wound
Not abandonment
but the hush-hush of heaviness
nobody had time to teach me how to hold.
I learned to fly
before my feet learned to stay
I’m the silver lining evangelist
selling hope wholesale,
dancing between plans
remixing reality before it ever hits repeat
Don’t get it twisted
this hunger isn’t gluttony,
it’s grief in disguise
Hoarding experiences and things
To fill the void
Rational as a defence
Pain? I rename it.
Failure? I reframe it.
Discomfort? I outrun it
with a suitcase full of possibilities
“I am okay. I bring the light."
= my preferred perception.
But the spotlight gets heavy
when your shadow’s in the front row
waiting to be named.
The world is a buffet of
limitless options
each experience a passport stamp
to escape what I fear will anchor me.
I’m fixated on the next…
The next hit of meaning
Next joy
Next opportunity
Next yes
Next thing
Next breath before the now has even exhaled
Limits and traps.
Boxed in by grief.
Suffocating under expectations.
All these my triggers
Don’t tell me I can’t,
I’ll burn bridges and bless myself
with first class tickets to anywhere but here
Wisdom whispers “Be Present”
Not to a million paths but one deep road.
I inhale and stretch to 1
Becoming disciplined and grounded
rooted in the real
Learning to stay long enough
to see that suffering, too, is inevitable & sacred.
Releasing to 5 my mind doesn’t just devour,
it dwells
Contemplates
Trusting solitude instead of fearing it
Not always having to speak to be heard
Being with myself
Living in the head
but I’m learning to feel
from the gut and the heart
that not every thought is truth,
not every escape is salvation.
Joy isn’t always loud.
Freedom isn’t always flight.
Sometimes it’s the courage to sit still
with a trembling soul
and say—“I’m not okay... yet.”
I’ll let everything happen to me:
beauty and terror
in the same hand
That’s my anthem now.
I won’t outrun the dark.
I’ll dance with it.
I’ll listen for its’ lesson.
My joy will be resistance,
Not denial
A revolution.
Presence as protest
against a world that tells me
to numb or flee
“May you find the courage to enter the wild silence,
where your soul speaks with soft thunder.
May your feet grow fond of stillness,
and your heart befriend the present.” (John O’Donahue)
I am Seven.
Still learning to be
While learning to stay.
Still learning that the deepest freedom
is not escape
but arrival.
