Instrument Poem by Henrietta Ezegbe

She pauses.
A breath held too long,
a question resting behind the eyes like a cup not yet lifted.

Then she steps.
Elegance follows her the way water finds shape,
not rushing,
not forced.

People feel it before they name it,
the warmth of her attention,
the way she listens as if the world matters,
the quiet pull of her kindness.

They think it was always this way.
They do not see the moment she almost closed her hands,
the night she sat on the edge of an unmade bed,
phone dark,
room breathing,
logic asking for proof and receiving only silence in reply.

What they miss is how often she chose openness over control,
how surrender came trembling at first, knees unsure on the floor,
then steadied by use.

Trust was not her nature,
it was her practice.
Her life is written through her, not by her.

She is the pencil,
sharpened by loss, softened by love,
willing to be worn down for the sake of the line.

The words move through her wrist with a knowing she cannot explain,
only honor.

She believes when sense falls quiet, when numbers refuse to sing.
She washes the cup,
locks the door,
steps into the day anyway.

She moves guided by a rhythm beneath thought,
a current that asks only for consent. That is where her power lives.
Not in charm alone, nor in the glow people notice first,
but in the courage to be led when the path dissolves underfoot.

The result is rare.
A gentleness that does not retreat.
A presence that steadies rooms. Something almost mythical walking around in breath and bone.

A unicorn, if one must name it,
not because she is unreal,
but because she said yes before she felt ready,
and kept saying it until wonder learned her shape.