Poem inspired by “The Genesis of a Passion”

I did not see it coming, just a flicker in the storm. .

But something in that quiet ache began to change my form. .

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I walked with borrowed reasons, secondhand and neatly filed. .

Yet one small wound refused to heal, and that is where it riled. .

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It pressed against my ribcage like a question said in prayer. .

A restless, low insistence: “There is something growing there.” .

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I tried to drown it in the noise of clever books and plans. .

But still it burned behind my eyes and trembled in my hands. .

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Some nights I traced the fault lines of the life I might have led. .

And found a hidden pathway running backward through my dread. .

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Was it that first betrayal, or the silence at the table? .

Or seeing someone shattered who was told they should be able? .

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Perhaps it was a kindness that arrived when I was broken. .

A stranger’s steady presence like a living, wordless token. .

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Whatever its first ember, I could never name the start. .

I only know it tightened like a vow around my heart. .

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It taught me how our suffering can rip the seams of sleep. .

Until we turn and face the place where memories cut deep. .

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There, in the dim anatomy of what we’ve learned to hide. .

A quiet fire assembles from the ruins we survived. .

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I found myself defending those who shook the way I shook. .

As if my chest became a door instead of just a book. .

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My questions grew more tender, less obsessed with being right. .

I wanted more to stay with you than win another fight. .

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This passion was not glamour, not a spotlight’s hungry beam. .

It was a long apprenticeship to one unfinished theme. .

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The theme that every human life is more than what was done. .

And no one should be measured by the damage when they’re young. .

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So I began to listen to the faulted and the frail. .

To stories that the polished world preferred to call a fail. .

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I saw my own reflection in the shiver of their voice. .

And realized that loving them was also my own choice. .

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Yet choice and calling tangled like two rivers in a flood. .

I followed where it pulled me through the silt of grief and blood. .

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It cost me easy comfort, simple answers, shallow peace. .

But in that costly territory, something found release. .

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I watched my guarded certainties collapse into the sea. .

And from the shards a gentler, braver self looked back at me. .

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To carry such a passion is to walk with open scars. .

To let your past illuminate, not just predict, who you are. .

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It asks you not to worship it, nor chain yourself in pain. .

But use the hurt you once endured to shelter others’ rain. .

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Now when I feel that trembling where the earliest echoes live. .

I hold it like a lantern that was always meant to give. .

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I think of how your own life hides a seed you barely see. .

Some moment that still follows you, still shaping who you’ll be. .

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Maybe it was a heartbreak, or a teacher’s single word. .

A book that found you wandering, a melody you heard. .

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You do not have to solve it, draw a diagram of why. .

Just notice how it moves you when another’s eyes are dry. .

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For passion’s first genealogy is written in your chest. .

In every time you could have left and yet you did your best. .

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So ask yourself, in mercy, what first taught your soul to burn. .

And let that hidden genesis become the way you turn. .

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Perhaps tonight in thinking of the origins you’ve known. .

You’ll find the tender starting point of what you call your own. .

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And in that soft admission, like a long-forgotten dawn. .

You’ll see the quiet passion that has led you all along. .

…

DCG