Perhaps karma
doesn’t arrive with thunder.

Perhaps it arrives
in the form of a person.

Someone who teases you
the way you once teased someone else.

Uses you
the way you once used someone.

Wanders away
the way you once wandered.

Withholds the tenderness
you once withheld.

Leaves you wondering
why you weren’t enough
when someone else once wondered
the very same thing about you.

And suddenly

you are standing
on the other side
of your own behavior.

A strange little universe
with a wicked sense of timing.

You recognize the wound
because, somewhere in your history,
you were holding the knife.

And yet

here is the strange part.

You are still you.

After the lesson.
After the mirror.
After the person who arrived
carrying pieces of your past
and handing them back to you
one painful piece at a time.

So what remains?

If the people we become
are shaped by what happens to us,
what is left underneath
all the experiences?

Is there a core?

Some small, stubborn self
that existed before the hurt,
before the mistakes,
before the defenses,
before we learned how to leave
or stay
or wound
or protect?

Maybe karma isn’t about punishment.

Maybe it is about perspective.

About finally feeling
what we once made someone else feel.

Not so we can suffer forever.

Not so the universe can balance
some cosmic spreadsheet.

But so we can finally understand.

And perhaps understanding
is the only useful form
of retribution.

Because the real question
isn’t

Why is this happening to me?

It is

Who am I now that I know
what it feels like?

Maybe we don’t become
completely different people.

Maybe we carry every version
of ourselves with us.

The teaser.
The wanderer.
The user.
The wounded one.
The one who loved badly.
The one who loved deeply.
The one who learned.

All of them.

Still us.

And somewhere underneath
all those selves

perhaps there is a core.

Quiet.

Watching.

Waiting for us
to finally become
someone we can live with.