Some women rise before dawn

to chase deadlines.

Some rise to chase toddlers.

Some rise and just—

don’t chase anyone.

And all of them are doing it right.

—

There’s work we show,

and work we shoulder in silence.

The invisible kind—

remembering birthdays,

smoothing tension,

smiling when you’d rather not.

The world calls it grace;

we know it’s stamina.

—

Then there’s the deeper kind,

the mirror kind—

where we ask ourselves

why her joy feels like a threat,

and why envy sounds

so much like judgment.

—

No one gets freer

by dragging someone else’s peace

through the mud.

That’s not conviction—

that’s a wound

demanding company.

—

If you find yourself sneering,

ask which shadow you’re standing in.

Most bitterness

is just unspoken envy

with better manners.

—

We’d all be better off

if we stopped grading

each other’s peace—

and learned to sit quietly

with our own reflection,

messy, luminous,

unfinished.

—

So chase what you want.

Cradle it, climb it, or quit it.

The point was never to match—

only to live

without apology.

HK