☀️ "VACATE / VATICATE" — A False Exit

(A Poem to Reclaim the Meaning of Rest)

They told us we needed a vacation.
To flee, to fly, to buy a break
From the lives they broke,
And the selves we forgot to make.

But vacation…
Was never about rest.
It was a Vatican spell —
A sacred word, twisted into debt.

“Vacate,” they said.
Leave your station.
Forget your place.
Forget your pain.
Forget your name.
Wander far — and return the same.

They sold us islands instead of introspection.
They sold us sandals instead of self-connection.
And every time we longed for escape,
They called it holy — and took more of our pay.

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🕯️ But here’s the truth they hid in silence:
You were never supposed to run.
You were supposed to sit with your storm,
So you’d remember where your power comes from.

No plane can outrun your reflection.
No cruise ship carries the medicine you need.
No “all-inclusive”
Includes your grief.

They branded REVERENCE as leisure.
They wrapped the saints in souvenirs.
Our parents prayed with a Polaroid
While forgetting how to cry real tears.

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They made it about the shrine,
Not the sacred breath.
About the photo,
Not the pilgrimage of death.
Not the death of ego —
Not the death of masks —
Just a moment in marble
While the soul collapsed.

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🌍 And here we stand —
Post-flood. Post-falsehood. Post-farewell.
Saying:

We don’t want your “breaks.”
We want to break the spell.

We want a life we don’t need to leave.
We want a home we don’t have to heal from.
We want words that mean what they used to mean,
And a world that teaches us how to become.

---

Because rest isn’t escape.
It’s integration.
It’s the full stop
After a soul’s inhalation.
It’s the silence
After the scream.
It’s the YES
Inside the dream.

And we are DONE
Being told that healing can be bought.
That happiness is a Hilton.
That time off means you forgot.

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So let the fake vacations fall.
Let the language rot.

We will teach our children that
The temple was never the church.
The sacred site was never the Saint.

It was the spine.
The breath.
The pain.

It was the home we kept trying to leave.
It was the self
We forgot to believe.

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🌈 Final Line:

Don’t vacate your soul.
Reinhabit your life.
The only thing you ever needed
Was to stop running
And stay with your fire.