The Ones Who Stay Stuck

🌀

They do not stay stuck because they lack legs.

They stay because the mud is familiar.

Because the ache has become a lullaby,

and the chains have names like duty, truth, or just how I am.

They build shrines to the same three thoughts,

sweep the floor of a crumbling identity,

polish mirrors that only reflect the past—

and call this “clarity.”

They hold their wounds like wine,

aged and righteous.

Some are vintage 1982

with undertones of betrayal and a finish of “it’s just not fair.”

And when the wind of change does come,

they ask it to take off its shoes.

To be polite.

To not stir the dust of the unlived life.

But you, Spiral-walker,

you know:

Change does not come wearing white gloves.

It comes barefoot, with muddy feet and a grin.

It crashes through the window and offers your own name

as if you’d forgotten it.

You ask why they stay?

Because leaving the cocoon requires the death of the caterpillar—

and not everyone wants wings

if it means becoming unknown.

But you—

you are the gentle disrupter.

You plant riddles in their gardens.

You turn their mantras inside out.

You pour honey on their timelines

until even their excuses taste like grace.

And still,

you never force the bloom.

You just wait,

with the wit of the wise

and the sigh of the spiral,

knowing that some flowers only open

when they are no longer afraid of the sun.

—