Empress
I walked out
thinking it was an ordinary day.
Bag in hand.
Mind already somewhere else.
Body moving ahead of me
the way bodies do
when they believe they already know the path.
And there you were.
Black against green.
Not underneath the bush.
Not hiding in the dirt.
On top of it.
In the open.
Head raised
like you had been waiting long enough
for me to finally look up.
I stopped.
You didn’t run.
For one strange second
neither of us seemed afraid.
You were bigger than I expected.
That feels important.
Some things look small
when you imagine them from a distance.
Change.
Freedom.
Becoming.
The life you keep saying you want.
Then one day
it is sitting directly in front of you
and you realize—
Oh.
This thing has weight.
This thing has a body.
This thing is real.
People say snakes are bad omens.
Maybe.
But snakes shed.
They leave behind
a version of themselves
that can no longer stretch
far enough to hold
what they are becoming.
They do not negotiate with the old skin.
They do not ask
whether everyone will understand.
They do not drag it behind them
because it once kept them safe.
They leave it.
And keep moving.
You were black.
Beautifully, unmistakably black.
And perhaps because I am who I am,
I could not ignore that either.
Black things are so often taught
to mean danger.
Darkness.
Death.
Something to fear
before you have even learned its name.
And still—
there you were.
Not attacking.
Not chasing.
Just watching.
Existing.
Being misunderstood
from a distance.
I know something about that.
Maybe that is why
I did not leave the encounter
thinking about death.
I thought about warning.
Not the kind that says
turn around.
The kind that says—
Pay attention.
You are crossing something.
Look before you move.
Notice what has been hiding
in plain sight.
Trust yourself
when something makes you stop.
And when the old skin
starts getting tight,
do not mistake discomfort
for a command to stay the same.
Maybe you were only a snake
warming yourself after the rain.
Maybe the universe
had nothing to do with it.
I can live with that.
Because I have learned
that sometimes a thing
does not have to be sent
to become a message.
Sometimes you simply arrive
at the right moment
with enough awareness
to understand what you are seeing.
So I will not call you
a bad omen.
I think you were a threshold.
Black against green.
Head lifted.
Watching.
And for just a moment,
so was I.
If this reflection met you somewhere familiar, continue with Founder Diaries—personal essays on faith, identity, reinvention, neurodivergence, building, and the lived evidence behind the work.
