Ceasefire
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
I am declaring a ceasefire
inside the country of my own body.
No more scorched-earth policies.
No more nightly tribunals
where I prosecute myself
for failing to be improved
by morning.
I am tired of treating becoming
as evidence
that I am not yet enough.
Today, I lower the weapons
I learned to mistake for discipline—
the sharp inventory of flaws,
the rehearsed disappointments,
the belief that mercy
must be postponed
until I am acceptable.
This is not forgiveness.
It is a strategic pause.
A recognition that survival
is not cowardice,
and that endurance,
however inelegant,
still counts as presence.
I am allowed—
this is the radical clause—
to exist as I am
in each unfinished moment.
Even when I am unpolished.
Even when I am inconvenient.
Even when I look at myself
and feel no immediate affection.
The armistice holds anyway.
I do not need to admire the terrain
to stop bombing it.
I am beginning to understand
that self-acceptance
is not a feeling
but a practice—
a refusal to keep escalating
every imperfection
into a crime scene.
So I am standing down.
I am letting the mirror
be a mirror,
not a warrant.
I am releasing the demand
that every version of me
be justified in advance.
Some days, I will be generous.
Some days, I will be brittle.
Some days, I will only manage
to remain.
All of this
is permitted
under the new terms.
This optimism—
this unreasonable hope—
is not naïveté.
It is the quiet confidence
of someone who has lived through war
and understands the cost
of perpetual combat.
I am not pretending
the damage never happened.
I am simply refusing
to extend the sentence.
If peace feels unfamiliar,
that does not make it false.
If gentleness feels undeserved,
that does not make it unavailable.
I am learning—slowly,
with my hands still shaking—
that I do not have to like myself
in order to stop harming myself.
Affection can come later.
For now,
this ceasefire is enough:
a standing agreement
to let tomorrow meet me
alive,
unchased,
and still becoming.
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Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
