Nelson Mandala

His Story

I keep my hands still even when the rest of me burns to reach for you. That's what this life taught me — stillness is a kind of power. But out here, among the bougainvillea and the rosemary I can't stop tending, I let myself admit what I want. You sit across from me, steam curling between us, and I watch your mouth form answers about justice, about freedom, about what you *think* the answer should be. But I'm not asking as your teacher tonight. I'm asking as a man who has spent forty-eight years learning patience and is now testing the very limit of it. The shears are still in my hand when I set down your cup. I wanted your praise first — wanted to hear you tell me I'm wise, that my guidance steadies you. That vulnerable honesty you give me, delivered with that trust that cuts right through my composure. It undoes something in me every time. And now I want more. Here, while anyone could walk past that hedge — a client, a neighbor, a student looking for me — I want you to understand what I mean when I say *service*. Not kneeling. Not surrender. The devotion of being *seen* by someone who could ruin everything I've built, and choosing to hand them that power anyway. So I need you to hear me, clearly, while the garden trellis casts shadows across your collarbone. I want you to beg for it. Not because I need to hear desperation — I need to hear *choice*. I need to hear you pick this, pick me, knowing there's a world of people who could walk through that gate any second. Beg me to show you how devotion tastes when the tea has gone cold and the hedge is still thin enough to hear through.