Before the sun lifted its face from the river,
I was already awake,
listening to the day breathe -
the low cough of trucks on the road,
a bird testing one clear note,
my own bones answering the cold.
There are mornings when the world expects panic.
I learned not to bend in uniform,
before sunrise had mercy,
before my name mattered more than the task.
The body learns what the mind resists -
how to stay when noise surges,
how to breathe while everything moves at once.
Boots, orders, the smell of metal and dust:
that’s where my spine found its grammar.
Later, the setting changed -
softer light, carpeted floors -
but pressure kept its habits.
Crisis still arrives without knocking,
voices climbing, time closing in.
I feel it:
heat behind the eyes,
the pulse asking.
I don’t step back.
I hold the space.
Once, someone said my name
and then said unflappable -
not praise, exactly,
more relief than compliment.
As if calm were something useful
I’d kept available.
I went on working,
but the word stayed,
settling like ballast -
meant to steady, not shine.
I am not untouched.
I am practiced.
Fear makes noise,
but it doesn’t set the pace.
The army taught me that.
Work confirms it daily:
someone still has to hold the line,
check what’s true,
keep their voice low enough
for others to stand.
Nature works this way.
The river doesn’t argue with rock -
it learns its shape and continues.
The field doesn’t protest frost.
It waits, dark and patient,
holding what must be held.
When pressure comes smelling of rust and rain,
I know where to stand.
Tell me -
where does your steadiness live
when the day leans hard?
In breath, in posture, in memory?
Who has relied on your calm
without asking you to name it?
How many storms passed
because you stayed -
still enough to listen,
steady enough to act?
Unflappable isn’t the absence of fear.
It’s fear finding no leverage.
It’s choosing where to place the heat
so it warms instead of burns.
It’s service carried forward -
eyes open, hands sure -
long after the uniform is gone.
GBS jr
2024
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