The samurai

Trapped between the sword and words.
Steel is simple-it cuts or it rests.
Speech is trickier-it binds, betrays, or falls empty.
So I stay between them, half-armed, half-mute.

My actions are boundaries no one dares to cross.
A bow too shallow, a glance too long, and they step back,
as though my silence were sharper than my blade.
Yet they do not know that silence can wound me too.

My thoughts ripple-circles in a pond no ear leans toward.
Wisdom without a listener is a bell without a striker,
and I wonder if that makes me less than wise,
or only less than audible.

They call my posture undefined.
They say I am unapproachable, ignored.
Perhaps they are right.
I have learned that a man who does not announce himself
becomes invisible even while standing in plain sight.

So I watch.
I watch as one might sip tea slowly,
learning how to savor the bitterness first,
then the warmth that follows.

I learn more from how people shift their weight
than from what they declare aloud.
They are oddly theatrical when they think I cannot see them-
faces tightened, hands restless,
gestures rehearsed for an invisible audience.

And I sit with my cup,
breathing the steam,
unmoved, unspoken,
yet collecting their strangeness like falling leaves.

Perhaps one day,
The sword will rust, and the words will finally pour.
Until then, I remain here:
not feared, not welcomed,
but present.
A stillness mistaken for stone,
yet alive enough to keep watching.