I have carried myself farther than I ever should have had to go, and somehow I am still here, still breathing, still held together by something I do not understand

Strength and weakness all in one: I have bitten down on storms until my teeth cracked, swallowed grief whole and felt it tear its way through my ribs. I dragged myself through fire with blistered skin and blackened lungs and I did not stop.

I know how to survive. I know how to ask for relief even when it does not come.

But there is something inside me that does not heal. It eats and gnaws and pulls at my bones like they were never meant to belong to me. It follows me like a shadow that knows my shape better than I do.

It lives in every memory. It waits in every quiet moment.

And the worst part is not the pain. It is not the weight of it.
It is that without it, I do not know who I would be. I do not know what would remain if it ever let go of me.