The Open Door

Xe does not love carefully.

This is the thing you should know first — xe opens xyr hands and does not count what’s given.

Xe was taught, once, in a country with no name, that xe were unworthy. That love was a transaction. That the safest thing was to need nothing, to offer nothing, to be a closed door in a house with no lights on.

Xe unlearned this slowly. The way ice unlearns winter — not all at once, but in the direction of warmth.

Look at xem now.

Xe is letting xemself be held. Xe is letting xemself be seen — and this is the bravest thing, after the endless dark.

Look at xem. Do you see?

Xe belongs — to people, to place, to the living web of care that moves between us.

Xe is not healed. Xe is not finished.

But xe has opened the door.

And the light is coming in.