The Cost and Reward of Being Present

To be present is to bleed on time.

It is to feel your hunger when the world offers noise.

To feel your grief when others scroll past theirs.

To breathe with both lungs, even when the air is thick with memory.

Presence costs you your illusions.

You can no longer pretend not to notice.

You can’t fake the room.

You can’t fake her voice.

You can’t fake yourself.

Presence will cost you every shortcut you used to survive.

It will rob you of comfort,

strip you of convenience,

expose the ways you used to disappear.

It will take your distractions

and crush them between moments of silence

so loud you mistake it for punishment.

But it is not punishment.

It is preparation.

Because once you’re present—truly present—

you begin to see.

You see the woman who never looks up.

You see the boy in the mirror who just wanted to be chosen.

You see the fear dressed in success.

You see the patterns. The lies. The loops.

And with that seeing… comes power.

The reward of presence is clarity.

You speak with weight.

You walk with direction.

You do not beg for love.

You do not borrow meaning.

You write like your blood is ink.

You train like your body is prophecy.

You live like this moment is not a hallway but a throne room.

The reward of presence is your life, fully returned to you.

The reward is never missing another sacred woman

because you were too busy surviving to see her.

The reward is holding your truth in both hands

and whispering: I’m still here.

To be present is to pay the highest price.

But it is also to receive the deepest reward.

And I—

I choose to be present.

Even if it breaks me.

Because at least then, I will be broken awake.

And not asleep.