The One I Keep Searching For

Some mornings I wake with a weight I can’t name.

It isn’t sadness. Not quite fear.

It’s something more ancient, like a question I’ve been asking for lifetimes.

Who am I when no one needs me, to be anything?

I’ve spent years assembling a self, through success, through pain, through the eyes of others. I’ve worn faces I thought would earn me love. But when I’m alone… really alone… I feel the echo of someone else. Someone I didn’t invent. Someone who has watched me perform, pretend, pursue, and still remains.

And so I ask, again - If I stop trying to be someone, who is left?

The Dhammapada said,

“All conditioned things are impermanent, when one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.”

I pause for a moment and let these words ripple through me. I aks again -

What have I built that isn’t truly me?

What am I holding on to that keeps me from simply being?

We spend so much energy trying to become someone… we forget the stillness of simply being... we forget the presence that encompasses us and with us all the time.

This reflection is not an answer but an invitation.

To stop. To pause. To listen. To wonder.

i have been the actor,

the mask,

the applause,

i have been the ache behind the smile,

but beneath the stage,

beneath the roles,

beneath the lights,

there is a space untouched,

like the moon,

beneath the shifting clouds,

unchanged by the weather of my emotions,

it waits, it watches,

every loss carved me,

but also cleared the fog,

every doubt did not destroy me,

it simply asked me to stop pretending,

there is no arrival,

only remembering,

no answer,

only awareness.

This is not just a verse, not just a poetry. It is a mirror. A place to sit and breath. It is about you. It is about me. Sit with this. Let the lines settle, like dust after a storm.

The version of you that hides behind daily roles, behind the “I’m fine”s, behind the chasing. Beneath all that effort, there is something steady. That is what we’re returning to. Not something new to discover, but something old to remember.

You are being stripped of all that is not you. You’re unfolding.

Let that be grace, and not a confusion. Let it be clarity, not collapse.

If something opened in you, even for a moment, feel free to echo it back.

A wonder. A breath. A whisper of truth.

No need to explain. Just share what moved.

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© 2025 Beyond Silence. Written by 'the one listening.'

If shared, please credit with care.