{a gentle reminder your joy deserves protection}

There are people in this world
who will regularly try and steal your joy;
project their unhealed wounds onto you,
rewrite the narratives in your heart
to suit their own skewed truth.

Your task isn’t to fix them
or convince them
or diagnose them
or understand them
or dim yourself to protect them.

You owe your light to no one my dear one.

So, if they try and steal your joy—
your task is simply
not to let them.