If You Can Stay

(A nod to Kipling's If)

If you can stay when roles begin their calling,

And stand your ground as masks begin their falling;

If you can feel the pull of every thread—

The limbic voice, the logic in your head—

If you can sense the cost of your disguises,

Yet wear no scorn when culture canonizes;

If you can mourn the ache beneath the game,

But hold no man in judgment or in blame—

If you can see in rage the root of yearning,

And light a lamp instead of merely burning;

If grief becomes your compass, not your chain,

And every scar still sings and speaks of rain—

If you can walk through temples built on power,

And feel no need to kneel, nor wish to tower;

If you can name the hunger masked as law,

And still find beauty in a broken flaw—

If you can stand where presence meets performance,

And hold the tension, not demand conformance;

If you can live without the need to win,

And meet the world beneath your practiced skin—

If ache can be your teacher, not your jailer,

If doubt can make you seeker, not a sailor

Who flees the shore for comfort in control—

Then you have not just saved your mind, but soul.

If you can touch without the need to tether,

And still believe we might unlearn together—

Then every myth we’ve broken to begin

Was never loss, but how we let light in.