You Can’t Out Run Joy

Baby, listen.

One of the wildest truths

this spinning world

ever whispered to me

is this:

You choose

the life you love.

Not the one

dressed in other people’s applause.

Not the one

stiff with borrowed ambition.

But the one

that makes your shoulders sway

when the music

is not playing.

And here is the part

that will twist your mind

like a sweet aroma

in the air:

You cannot compete

with a woman

who is having fun living.

You just can’t.

You can stack degrees

to the ceiling,

wear brilliance

like diamonds

in daylight,

memorize

every rule

of the game—

but if joy

is not in your bones,

if laughter

does not live

in your lungs,

life

will not breathe

through you.

Knowledge

is a map.

But charisma

is the wind.

And baby,

a woman

with wind

in her spirit

moves different.

She dances

through rooms

other folks

try to conquer.

She smiles

like the rays of the sun

signed her permission slip.

She is not chasing

the world—

the world

is catching its breath

trying to keep up.

Meanwhile

the ones living

by comparison

start gasping,

because the saddest way

to exist

is breathing air

that belongs

to somebody else’s dream.

But me?

Oh no.

I’m choosing

my own sky,

my own rhythm,

my own wild—

laughing

at the complexity

of life.

And darling,

that kind of joy

cannot be outworked,

outsmarted,

or outrun.

It can only

be lived.