A Guest I’m Honored to Share With You
This week, I have the chance to publish the work of an amazing writer here on Substack: Asura Hotaru.
I discovered her, thanks to Amit The Storyteller, through one of her collaboration projects — a beautiful moment of creativity and connection. I’m grateful our paths crossed, and grateful to share her words with you today.
Two People Listening to the Same Light is a quiet, luminous piece about what happens when two truths stand side by side without trying to erase each other. Asura Hotaru writes with the softness of someone who understands that connection isn’t built through agreement, but through attention — the gentle kind, the kind that allows two perspectives to breathe in the same space.
Her poem reminds us that we can share a moment, a sky, a silence, without matching perfectly. That difference doesn’t have to divide; it can invite understanding. And in that “gentle middle,” as she calls it, our stories can lean toward each other without losing their shape.
It’s a poem about presence, about listening, about honoring the colors someone else sees — even when they’re not our own. A tender reminder that maybe the softest form of closeness is simply this:
to meet one another under the same light, with open eyes and an unhurried heart.
Two People Listening to the Same Light
by Asura Hotaru
Some days, the world feels sharp.
Names heavy.
Truths louder than they need to be.
But then there are quieter hours —
the in-between ones —
where two people stand under the same light
and see different colors
without needing to correct each other.
Maybe that’s the real softness of living.
Not forcing the sky to match our shade,
but letting someone else point out
the blue we missed.
I’ve learned this:
every path has its own rhythm,
every heart its own defense,
every truth its own shape.
Sometimes the kindest thing we can do
is listen to a truth that isn’t ours
and let it breathe beside us.
I don’t need us to agree.
I only need this small moment —
two voices, two visions,
resting on the same page
like hands on a railing
that has tasted many winters.
If there is a bridge between us,
it won’t be built from answers.
It will be made of attention —
the quiet kind,
the kind that lets each of us be
exactly who we are.
And maybe that’s enough —
to meet each other here,
in this gentle middle,
where your story leans toward mine
without losing its shape.
🌿 About Asura Hotaru
Asura writes quiet, tender stories about the small moments that shape a life.
Her Substack is a soft corner filled with hushed romance, subtle mystery, and poems that feel like breathing space. She writes with slow rhythm, gentle truth, and a sincerity that lingers long after the day ends.
Much of her work unfolds in her ongoing novel, A Quiet Promise, where she follows two souls learning how to trust warmth again.
Today, she offers us a poem — a quiet bridge between hearts and perspectives.
The Mirror Room’s reflection
When I read Asura’s poem for the first time, something inside me loosened.
There’s a softness in her writing that feels almost like a quiet room at the end of a loud day. She doesn’t force truth into one direction, she doesn’t sharpen it into an argument—she lets it breathe. And in that breathing space, something important becomes possible:
two stories can exist without one swallowing the other.
The line that stayed with me the most was this one:
“to meet each other here, in this gentle middle,
where your story leans toward mine
without losing its shape.”
That is exactly what her writing does.
It invites you closer without asking you to shrink.
It leans toward you without bending your edges.
It creates a place where difference isn’t a conflict, but a meeting point.
And that is rare.
Asura sees the world in a way that feels both fragile and steady—a combination that creates its own kind of truth. Her poem reminded me that connection isn’t built from perfect alignment, but from attention. From the quiet willingness to stand with someone for a moment, even when your colors don’t match.
I’m grateful she shared her light here.
And I’m grateful to everyone reading, for keeping this space open enough for multiple truths to rest side by side—gently, honestly, without losing their shape.
To the Mirror Room’s Reader
Thank you for welcoming Asura Hotaru into our space this week.
I hope her words offered you the same delicate clarity they offered me.
If you feel moved by her writing, I invite you to visit her Substack and support her work:
👉 Subscribe to AsukaHotaru
🪞 If you want to support my work
Consider becoming a free subscriber to The Mirror Room Journal,
and share this poem with someone who might need a moment of gentle truth today.
Warmly,
Odel A.
 | A guest post by
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Odel… you made me sit here staring at the screen like I’ve just been handed a cup of something warm I didn’t know I needed. The way you held my little poem with that kind of tenderness? I felt it. Truly.
Thank you for letting my quiet words sit beside yours — it’s a rare feeling when someone reads you in the exact temperature you meant. I’m grateful for this corner you’ve built, and for the space you keep open for softness, difference, and all the colours in between.
You couldn't have asked for a better partner to collaborate with, Odel
Asuka is gifted and kind