The Two Within in a Poem

I thought I was divided
light on one shoulder,
shadow on the other,
a war between heaven and bone.

I learned the names early:
right and wrong,
good and evil,
should and shouldn’t
and I lived inside the echo of them.

But somewhere between breath and silence
a quieter truth remained,
unchanging,
unimpressed by my fear,
untouched by my stories.

One voice chased.
The other waited.

One demanded answers,
built walls from belief,
measured worth in outcomes and approval.
The other asked nothing
only watched,
only knew,
only was.

I called one “me.”
I called the other “God.”
And in that naming, I missed them both.

Scripture whispered.
Sages hinted.
Poets circled it carefully.
Jesus said I Am.
Buddha fell silent.

Different paths,
same doorway.

The mind reached outward,
begging the sky for meaning.
The soul leaned inward,
already home.

I learned that prayer is not asking
it is listening.
That truth is not spoken
it is lived.
That belief borrows,
but knowing remembers.

I am not the body I drive.
I am not the story I repeat.
I am not the fear that tightens my chest
when I forget.

I am the space where forgetting happens.

There was never a fall
only a dream of separation.
Never a war
only misunderstanding.

The devil was distance.
Heaven was presence.

And in the stillness,
without effort or belief,
the simplest truth remains:

And the two within
were never two at all
just awareness
wearing a voice.

So I stop striving.
I stop dividing.
I stop asking who I should become.

I sit.
I breathe.
I notice.

I Am