When things are too still for too long,
I start to brace myself.
For the moment the bottom gives way.
For the familiar collapse.
And it always does.
It always comes.

First, a part of me crumbles with it,
Before I scold myself
for breaking, at all.

Again.

I can’t help but go numb.
My heart starts to race,
my lungs breathe shallow.

As if they too are waiting
for it all to pass,
for calm to return.

I wish I didn’t know.
I wish I couldn’t sense it.
In the way a shift in the air
warns of thunder before it cracks.

But I feel it rising,
every time,
before it descends.

And when it hits,
the weight of knowing
presses down so hard
I can hardly breathe.

It is not the blow alone that breaks me,
but the waiting.
The endless bracing.
The knowing, that it’s coming.                                                                                     

And it always does. Always.

But each time the quiet returns,
I find myself able to breathe deep once again.
And pray every time for it to last as long as it can.
As some part of me
keeps watching the horizon.
Half-living in dread,
half-living in hope,
always preparing for the fall.

Forever grateful for each quiet moment.

There’s a space between the moments.
Not quite here, not quite gone.
A place where my breath catches,
and time seems to hold its breath too.

In that space, I carry both fear and hope.
A quiet tug-of-war between wanting to let go
and desperately needing to keep holding on.

I’ve learned to meet myself there,
not with judgment,
but with patience.
Like a friend who knows my silences
and never hurries me to speak.

Because healing never arrives all at once.
It’s small steps.
Soft words I whisper to my soul,
and the permission to rest
when the world asks for more than I can give.

Some days, surviving means only existing.
Not fixing, not striving.
Just being here enough to take one more breath.

And in that breathing,
I start to remember the version of me
that lives beneath the weight.
A spark still flickers there,
quiet but certain,
Growing

So I stay in that space between the moments.
Holding both my brokenness and my strength.
Learning that even in the waiting,
peace can make a home in me.

I thought it would never let go.
The weight pressed into my bones,
nights stretched so long,
that I forgot the sound
of my own lightness.

But it didn’t stay
in the way I feared.
It loosened slowly,
a thread here,
a knot there,
until one quiet morning
I realized I could breathe
without bracing.

I remember the blur,
the endless running together,
the feeling of being
nowhere at all.
Now, there is shape again.
Not perfect.
Not whole.
But mine.

The colors that came back
weren’t the ones I remembered.
They were softer,
frayed at the edges,
but real enough to hold in my hands.

And though I know
it will unavoidably return,
I have now lived through its storm once more.
This time,
I carry both the memory of its weight
and the proof
that I can outlast it.

To be haunted,
especially by the past,
is like living with ghosts.

You become a shell of yourself,
not even knowing who you used to be.
Everything feels blurry,
faded,
and runs together.

There’s no beginning nor end.

To anything.

Then,
there comes a day,
a moment even,
when you are reminded
of your true self.

You feel alive again,
and you can’t believe
you had been living that way
for so long.

Not realizing until now that so many parts of you went dark.

Dead almost.

The ghosts of your past,
the weight of your trauma,
fade just enough
for you to breathe deep again.

You still have a long way to go.
But you feel stronger now.
Ready to face
the demons that creep in
during the darkest of moments.

Then the next time,
when those thoughts come back,
they aren’t as strong as before.

They loosen their hold on you a little.

Just enough to feel it inside.

You hold onto this feeling,
despite knowing it most likely will slip away.

But as long as you’re better off
than you were before,
that’s all that matters.

Healing isn’t linear,
and even the slowest,
smallest progress
should never be dismissed.

Life begins to feel brighter,
and somehow,
that’s enough.

Things carry meaning
they never had before.

And when you wake up each morning,
you no longer cry
at the realization
that you are still breathing.

You’re smiling instead.

Because life is beautiful.

Without darkness, there would be no light.

And that is everything sometimes.

It feels like I’m living two very different lives.

One the world can see.
Where I smile,
talk to people,
move through my day
like everything is fine.

And one no one knows,
where I carry a quiet storm
of pain,
grief,
and unspoken weight.

My heart feels heavy,
silently crying out
for comfort,
for understanding.

Balancing these two sides
is exhausting.

Every day,
the silence grows louder,
and the weight
of what I don’t say
pulls me further under.