My inner peace is but a lush landscape, and you are the gardeners. Talk too loud and you wake my mother, the angel who gave birth to the idea of beauty. There is yarn, and there is also the notion of invisibility, intertwining and weaving the concept of being chained to society—alas, an aching body and a fragile soul.

I just hope that one day we will climb out of the dark, muddy pit we fell into, and allow our skin to soak in the flawlessness of filtered rainfall. I am but your perfume.

I am alone, actually, yet I carry my hands in prayer. I slowly count until the darkness in front of my eyes makes space for the vibrant reality of awakening to compassion.

We are all gardeners in the consciousness of community, and once the apple tree’s fruit is ripe, we can share the fruit of practice and allowance. Like in outer space, the room in my heart contains nothing but light bouncing back and forth between the blood pulsing in and out. Like this, tears find their way onto my puffy, rosy cheeks—cheeks that have been exposed to light far too little, yet show their resistance by tanning far too quickly. The body knows how to rebel.

And every night, tender words find me in my dreams, soft realities unfolding as visions aching with a lust for silence. And every night, I hug myself through the brutal awakening to a new day in a deaf society as a blind human.

I wish I had learned to work with my fingers. I watch them for hours sometimes. I like them; I’m convinced they hold the blueprint to beauty. Seeing beautiful paintings, I fall in love over and over again with myself for being able to recognize someone’s heart and vision.

Being present, being available to the call of becoming free, I am a gardener in the lush landscape of a bewildering society.