Loud and Clear
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The Poem
Loud and Clear
The noise arrives first.It always does —before the clowns show their faces,before the shark finds the water,before the megaphones multiply and aim —the noise, filling the space where the self was,where the quiet that belongs to you used to livebefore the world decided it had opinions about who you are and what you’re worth.
I raised women who know the difference between the noise and the signal.This is the whole gift —not protection from the clowns, not removal of the shark,not silence from the megaphones —the ability to stand in the middle of all of itwith a flower in your hair and know:this is noise. This has nothing to do with me.I do not have to receive it.
The clowns will always be there.Not bad people, necessarily —just people who need you to hear themmore than they need to say anything worth hearing.The strong woman sees the clown clearlyand does not become the audience the clown requires.
The shark is patient.Circling in the calm blue that looks like safety —waiting for the moment the noise wears you down enoughthat you mistake the circling for company.
Circling in the calm blue
Only let the good ones in.The ones who have your best interests at their center.Who sit with you in the quiet you deserveand do not fill it with their own noise.The rest is weather. The rest is clowns.The rest is the shark doing what sharks do.
I raised this.Not the easy life — the knowing.The ability to stand in the loudest room ever aimed at youand remain exactly yourself —flower in the hair, radiant,unbothered in the way that costs something and is worth everything.
Flower in the hair, radiant
Loud and clear.Not in the megaphones. Not in the clown voices. Not in the patient circling.
In the quiet they carry underneath —
the signal beneath the noise,
the voice that knows itself,
that knows the difference,
and speaks anyway.