White Knight

ask: what are you protecting me from really?

White Knight

should you find yourself
     carrying the weight
          of every wound but your own

     should you discover
          you have become
     a fortress and knight
          both locked inside

sit down
     face the part of you
          who builds walls

ask:
     what are you protecting 
me from
          really?

it will answer
     not with trite words
          but with the memory
     of reaching out
          and finding only air
     the moment you drank
the bitter lesson:
          need
     opens doors
          into empty rooms

so you became the door
     always open
          for others to enter
     but always barred
          from the inside

because

if you are needed
     you cannot be 
abandoned
          if you are
indispensable
     you cannot be 
forgotten
          if you carry 
everyone
     no one will see
          how 
heavy 
          you have become

but listen:
     exhaustion is not armor
          it is erosion
     the wolf who refuses the pack
          bleeds 
                 alone
     the oak that will not bend
          breaks 
                in the storm

ask again:
     what are you protecting me from?

and it will tell you:

from the moment
     when someone sees
          you are as 
fractured
     as the ones 
           you try to 
                      mend

from the terror
     that if you stop 
            being useful
          you stop 
                   being worth keeping

from the belief
     carved into you so early
          you forgot it was carved:
     that your value
          is what you do
     not the fact
          that you breathe

now ask the final question:
     what if I let someone in?

the armor
     that has kept you standing
          and kept you solitary
     will go quiet

then whisper
     like wind through stone:

what if they stay?

what if you discover
     you were worth loving
          all along
     not because you saved them
          but because you exist

what if the door
     swings both ways?

the armor will not vanish
     it has served too long
          protected too well
     but it may loosen
          just enough

for you to remember
     that beneath the weight
          of everyone else's burdens
     your own heart
          still beats

and it has been waiting
     patient as 
winter roots
          for you to notice
     it was never the 
         strength
            that made you 
                          worthy

it was always
     the weakness