Punishment Is a Blessing in Disguise

I spent my whole life
learning this:

your punishment
was a blessing in disguise.

Drowned beneath
the weight of my desires,
I thought you had deprived me—
yet you kept me alive.

I came seeking refuge
at your threshold,
and you turned me away.

Only later, looking back,
did I see the gifts
you had left in my hands:

light,
air,
water,
fire,
and the tolerant blue sky—
the elements
from which I am made.

Every time I came seeking you,
you rejected me.

Every time
I returned empty-handed,
I returned stronger.

I stood at the threshold
and turned away
when I should have crossed the door.

I did not know
that every refusal
was teaching me
to enter myself.

Day after day,
you led me deeper
into the relentless
examination of my own soul.

Sometimes I forget you.
Sometimes I remember
and try to follow your path.

Yet your cruelty
knows no bounds.

You disappear
behind the mask of appearance,
and even that absence
becomes a blessing.

Perhaps this is your kindness:

you reject me
because you are preparing me
to be taken.

You withhold yourself
until I am ready
to receive you.

And perhaps,
on that final day,
when everything I thought I knew
falls silent,

I will see the truth—

not with my eyes,

but with something
that has been learning
to see all along.