The Field of Beings
(Four poems to cross memory, grace, doubt, and light)
By Sophie Rouméas

II. From the Sacrificial Healer to the Serene Presence

Codependence—
a strange alchemy of the bond,
precious, rare,
chaotic, true.
A tenderness that twists,
a help that loses itself,
a hand once steady, now trembling.

Suffering on one side,
and then, on the other side of the mirror,
the helper becomes the patient,
and tenderness, a slow poison.
Yet within that poison,
a lucidity is born—
the knowing of how to love
without dissolving.

Calm returns,
like the sea after a storm.
You feel the caress of air,
the warm breath rising in your chest,
and in that breath,
a soft extraction of pain,
a translation into another kind of love.

Empathy stops devouring.
It transforms—
becomes compassion,
becomes release.
That subtle balance:
wanting to help,
yet accepting not to act in another’s place.

You have the right.
Will you allow yourself?

Yes—because healing is a political act.
To awaken is to betray
the former versions of yourself
that served a sick system.
Refusing sacrifice
is not abandoning your calling—
it is making it true.

So together,
we learn to live more alive.
Together, we love,
no longer to repair,
but to breathe.
Together, we open the door—
the one that leads
to mutual healing.

Where he would be healed.
Where you would be alive.