What I Once Agreed To

A poem about letting go of old patterns and ways of thinking

This poem came in the early morning, just before light.

The night before, I had been thinking about curiosity as an antidote to boredom. About how quickly judgment closes the door on possibility, how presence, especially in stillness, asks us to pause – to meet the moment before reacting to it.

That night I dreamt I was living another life. I was alone. Living by myself. The house was so quiet. I remember feeling a faint sadness. I wandered outside to my garden, feverishly pulling weeds. But the more I weeded, the more weeds there were. I grew tired. Frustrated.

And finally – I stopped. I looked around.

And then I saw it: they weren’t weeds at all. They were part of the garden. Wild, tangled, and utterly beautiful.

I woke up sweating from the exertion of pulling weeds. The faintest light slipping through the window. Before the feeling vanished, I wrote this poem.

Wild Oats, Marin, CA

What I Once Agreed To

At first, it was safer to know.
To plant words like fences
and sleep behind their edges.

Too many smiles lingered too long,
eyes wrapped in kindness that waited.
I didn’t know what they wanted,
but they pressed against the walls
of what I’d built.

I had my words. My ideas.
They never laughed at me.
They lined up neatly,
like tidy soldiers.
I guarded them
and they guarded me.

That was the agreement.

Beauty was playing dress-up.
Too easy. Boring.
It wore sequins and slogans
and tried to sell me
what I never asked for.
So I looked away.
Called it decoration.
Distraction.
Fake.

Wonder became weakness.
Stillness, a trap.
I trusted the buzz of my thought
more than the sound
of my own breath.

And then –
I went out to pull weeds.
Just to tidy what I hadn’t touched
in months.
But the roots ran deeper
than I thought,
twisting around old stems
I once called mine.

Some things had flowered
and gone to seed
without me.
Others had choked
from too much crowding.

It took hours.
A kind of grief.

But underneath –
dark, soft soil waited.
Ready,
again.

I collapsed.
Staring at the ground,
then at the sky.

What had I been running from?
What had I missed
behind so many locks?

Suddenly,
I was curious
to look a little closer.
To pause a little longer.

Curiosity didn’t ask me to change –
only to stay
long enough
to see what was already there.

Beauty, wonder –
it was all around me.
Patiently waiting
for me to notice.

And stillness
wasn’t silence after all.
It was the space
where I finally heard
the sound
of letting go.

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If this stirred something for you, I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

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