A friend of mine, a writer, once told me that every idea she pitched had to come with justification—proof of its merit—before anyone would take it seriously.
She had spent years refining her craft, letting her narratives speak for themselves. Yet, time and again, the question came: Where’s the evidence? It was never enough to create. Never enough to trust in the work itself. Her voice only mattered when she defended it, when she proved that her instincts were worth believing.
How many times must something be explained before it is believed? How often is truth undone—not by its own weakness, but by the ease of doubt?
The Weight of Proof exists in the space between certainty and recognition: between reality and refusal, between knowing something is real and needing someone else to say it is. The question lingers, caught between silence and demand: What happens when proof is never enough? When truth stands undeniable, yet unseen?
The Weight of Proof — The Poem
By Kerry Ann Wiley
What happened?
The question folds in on itself,
creases where breath once fought for space,
a tether wound tight in the hush of arrival.
A weight pressed against the threshold,
a ribbon of consequence, a knot in the script,
braiding silence into the first inhale—
was that the first mistake?
No evidence of what isn’t missing.
The whisper circles, slippery and thin,
like a thread pulled loose from fabric
that never needed mending.
Having to prove the truth, never cheated.
Each step echoes on glass,
a trail of proof left behind,
yet still, the demand persists.
Walking in evidence.
The weight of what should be evident
is stitched into the seams of every motion,
woven into the rhythm of each pause.
If truth is only valid when believed,
let the air hold the name without question,
let the hands that measure learn
that proof does not need performance.
What happened?
The question lingers like a breath withheld—
perhaps nothing, perhaps everything,
perhaps only what refuses to be seen.
The Burden of Explanation
The poem starts with a question that twists back on itself, like a thread pulled tight. What happened? The words exist in the space between memory and defense, between knowing and needing to justify.
Breath becomes a metaphor for containment. The body holds truth before releasing it, before shaping it into something presentable, something acceptable. Yet, is the breath itself enough? Or does it, too, need proof?
“No evidence of what isn’t missing.”
What proves something exists when its absence was never acknowledged? When the loss was never counted?
A thread pulled loose from fabric that was never torn—doubt unraveling what was always whole. The stage of glass is fragile, yet it does not break. Each step is deliberate, careful. The trail of proof is left behind, not to be noticed, but because it must be. To prove, again and again, what should never have been questioned.
A Truth That Does Not Need Performance
Exhaustion anchors the poem. The kind that sinks deep, threading through muscle and marrow. The kind that turns certainty into effort, presence into explanation.
“Let the hands that measure learn that proof does not need performance.”
The line resists. What if truth did not have to be shaped into something presentable? What if it could simply be?
Some move through life without a second glance, their presence accepted without question. Others carry the weight of explanation, stitched into their words, their gestures, and the spaces they navigate. It is not truth that sets them apart, but the demand to make it legible to those who never have to prove their own.
Truth does not shout. It does not vanish when ignored. Yet silence is rarely empty. It holds weight, thick with meaning, thick with waiting.
There is a labor to being seen, to being believed. A labor that some will never be asked to bear. To move through the world unquestioned is a freedom so seamless it goes unnoticed, an absence of friction mistaken for simplicity.
Those asked to explain, to justify, move through life with expectation pressing against them. The weight of proving, again and again, is a burden that never fully lifts.
The Truth That Stands Without Permission
Some truths remain whole, untouched by doubt. They do not require validation to exist, yet without recognition, they remain unseen.
The poem moves through the space between presence and acknowledgment, between what is known and what is allowed to be known. It asks: If proof is always demanded, when does certainty begin? If truth stands firm yet remains unseen—what, then, is truly being measured?
Perhaps proof was never the point. Perhaps the weight was never in the truth itself, but in the willingness—or unwillingness—to see it. Truth does not vanish in silence. It does not dissolve under doubt. It waits—unshaken, unyielding, whether or not it is seen.
And so the question lingers, softer now, but no less certain:
When will truth be seen?
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