What Is Trust?
It is the invisible thread that binds,
The quiet peace a worried spirit finds,
A bridge of glass across a canyon deep,
A promise that the soul intends to keep.
It is not built of stone or steel or wood,
But forged in moments generally understood
To be the small, unnoticed, fleeting things—
The safety that a simple silence brings.
It is the hand you hold within the dark,
The kindling waiting for the crucial spark,
The knowledge that you need not check the lock,
The solid ground beneath the trembling rock.
I. The Architecture
It starts as something fragile, new, and strange,
A currency we offer in exchange
For vulnerability, that fearful price,
A gamble where we dare not roll the dice.
We lay the bricks with patience, one by one,
A labor that is never truly done.
It takes a thousand hours to build the wall,
And only one brief second for the fall.
It is the open door, the unguarded heart,
The willingness to never stand apart,
To show the cracks, the scars, the ugly side,
With nothing left to cover or to hide.
II. The Risk
To trust is to surrender all control,
To hand a loaded weapon to a soul
And turn your back, believing in the end,
They will not fire, but rather, they defend.
It is the leap of faith without the net,
The memory of debts we can’t forget,
But choose to cancel, wiping clean the slate,
Leaving the heavy burden up to fate.
It is the courage found in being weak,
To let the other person truly speak,
And know they hold your secrets in their hand,
Like grains of precious, sifting, golden sand.
III. The Fragility
But oh, how thin the ice on which we tread,
How quickly silence fills the room with dread.
A shadow cast, a whisper out of place,
Can steal the light from a beloved face.
For trust is glass, so perfect and so clear,
Distorting nothing, drawing objects near,
But if it shatters, mending is a pain,
The cracks will always, visibly remain.
You glue the pieces, sharp and jagged edges,
You re-recite the old and broken pledges,
But light reflects a little differently,
Upon a mended, scarred reality.
IV. The Betrayal
When trust is broken, gravity gives way,
The colors drain from out the brightest day.
The ground dissolves, the anchor snaps its chain,
And nothing looks or feels the same again.
It is the hollow echo in the chest,
The mind that cannot settle or find rest,
Questioning the truth of what was real,
A wound that time is hesitant to heal.
It turns the gentle lover to a ghost,
And burns the bridges that we needed most.
It teaches us to close the iron gate,
To guard the tower and to hesitate.
V. The Rebuilding
Can it return? Can dead roots bloom anew?
Can grey skies turn back to the deepest blue?
It is a slow and agonizing climb,
Defying logic, reason, and the time.
It requires a truth harsher than the lie,
A willingness to let the ego die.
To walk through fire and not be consumed,
To resurrect what we had presumed doomed.
It is the hardest work a heart can do,
To look at something broken and see through
To what it was, and what it could become,
To march again to the erratic drum.
VI. The Essence
So what is trust? It is the choice to see
The very best in humanity.
Despite the history, despite the fear,
To draw the stranger and the loved one near.
It is the air we breathe but cannot see,
The foundation of all intimacy.
Without it, we are islands, vast and lone,
With it, we make the universe our home.
It is the bravest thing we ever do,
To say, "I put my life and faith in you."
And though the risk is great, the fall is steep,
It is the only promise worth the keep.
