At seven, my heart learned sadness
a quiet theft of innocence,
the gentle pulse of life against my chest,
teaching me how fragile
forever truly is.

Days shrank to precious minutes,
as if holding you closer
could somehow slow time,
your warmth a whisper
I begged to keep hearing.

The morning arrived uninvited,
unfair in its sunrise,
forcing goodbye from lips
too young to speak such words,
a child waving softly,
unaware how final
goodbyes could be.

Years stretch now behind me,
but that day remains
pressed inside my chest
like an old, familiar ache
the sting of tears fresh
as if you’d left this morning,
not a lifetime ago.

I can still feel
your fur beneath my fingers,
your small body breathing gently,
the world unfair in ways
I learned too soon
and never forgot.

After all this time,
that first sorrow lingers,
unsoftened by age,
unfaded by memories,
the heart of a child
still grieving, still holding on
to what it never learned
how to let go.

Throughout the day,
in quiet passing moments,
there’s always something,
some gentle nudge,
pulling my thoughts toward you.

When I glance at the clock
there it is again:
3:33.
Numbers aligning,
perfectly placed,
whispering softly,
like the universe’s private joke,
telling me you’re somewhere
thinking, feeling,
existing
in the same world as me.

Sometimes,
in the heart of night,
I wake without reason,
eyes adjusting in the dark,
and there
again
the soft glow says:
3:33.
It’s quiet, familiar,
a cosmic wink,
the gentlest reminder
that life’s mysteries
tie me softly back to you.

In these tiny,
perfect alignments,
time pauses
just long enough
to whisper your name.
It’s the universe’s secret
and mine
this silent reassurance,
this quiet truth,
that somehow,
at 3:33,
shares a delicate moment
of connection.

Each day I move with purpose
not to become someone new,
but to return
to who I’ve always been.

We grow up thinking we’re flawed,
like something’s missing.
But no one is broken
some just started farther from the line,
had to climb a little more,
push a little harder.

Still, the choice is ours.
Growth is a habit,
a quiet decision made in the mirror,
in every rep, every breath,
every moment we decide to show up.

I’m not chasing perfection
I’m stepping into alignment.
Not fixing,
but remembering.

This is what freedom feels like:
living each day
as a reflection of your truth.

Peace isn’t passive
it’s earned
in motion,
in effort,
in choosing the path
that builds you.

And every day,
I choose it again.

When I was young,
I ran because I didn’t know how to stay.
The ball, the pavement, the open sky
they were my way of praying
without using words.
I’d play until the sun collapsed into dusk,
as if motion could soften
what love never reached.

No one noticed back then
that I was running toward feeling alive.
It was the only time
my heart beat for something
other than escape.

Those were the only memories that didn’t hurt.

And then, the other day
your voice came back to me:
“Do what makes you happy.”
So I ran again.
Not away this time,
but toward a boy I’d forgotten
the one who used to believe
freedom lived in his legs,
and hope waited just beyond
the next breathless stride.

It hit me
you were always like that.
Simple words,
but they stayed in me
long after the moment passed.

You never tried to be a savior.
You just were one.
Quietly.
Without needing credit.

Everything you gave
was laced with some kind of healing
you didn’t even realize you were offering.
Even your silences felt safe.
Even your laughter
felt like a door opening to the sun.

I think I’m just now realizing
I wasn’t only remembering how to run.
I was remembering you.

And how, even now,
it’s still your voice
pulling me back
to the parts of myself
that once felt too small to matter.

You always knew the way.
You were healing
not because you tried,
but because you lived
like love was still possible.

It never occurred to me
not once in all these years,
that surviving the storm
was a quiet miracle.

I stumbled through a childhood
built on broken glass,
each careful step
cutting deeper than the last,
innocence lost to shadows
I never invited in,
dreams replaced by whispers
that told me I couldn't win.

I was set on roads
that led straight off cliffs,
expected to fall,
expected to drift.
Yet something unseen,
a quiet, defiant flame,
kept burning within me
despite scars with no name.

I never paused to wonder
at my own stubborn light,
how in darkness so consuming
I learned to ignite,
how a voice I thought silenced
spoke courage from my chest,
turning ruin into resilience,
pain into progress.

Today I sit in quiet awe
of all I've overcome,
grateful for the battles
I didn’t know I’d won.
Though memories ache
and old wounds sometimes call,
I stand amazed
somehow, I didn’t fall.

Now here I am,
the sum of unlikely victories,
a quiet miracle
emerging from mysteries.
And finally, I honor
what I never could before:
the strength it took to survive,
and to want life even more.

Some of us are handed tangled maps,
roads inked in sorrow, street signs missing.
We grow up reading silence like scripture,
learning to smile while unraveling inside.

They say life is a journey
but what if your compass was grief?
What if the stars you followed
were the bruises you pretended not to feel?

It’s a strange kind of labor,
to unlearn the voice that whispers
you are too much, or never enough
to untie the knots in your soul
and call the frayed parts sacred.

Sometimes healing feels like forgetting
how to walk in the shoes that hurt you.
Sometimes it’s standing barefoot
in the wreckage of old beliefs,
and daring to rebuild with trembling hands.

But oh, what beauty lives in the broken
not in the cracks, but in the light that slips through them.
Not in being fixed, but in being real.

Because those who have wept
know the weight of another’s tears.
Those who have been silenced
can hear pain even when it's whispered.

You are not wrong for finding it hard
this life was not written in straight lines.
But your scars are constellations,
your wounds untranslated poetry.

And though the path is crooked,
you walk it with uncommon grace,
offering your empathy like a lantern
to those still stumbling in the dark.

There’s a part of me
that only breathes
when the world blurs
into a window view,
and the sky
feels like it’s calling me
by name.

I was made for motion
for narrow streets lined with stories,
for bridges that hum with centuries,
for foreign tongues
that sound like poetry
to a soul aching for wonder.

Adventure isn't an escape
it's a return
to the parts of me
that feel most awake.
To sip wine under French balconies,
to lose myself in the alleys of Prague,
to let Florence teach me how
to see again.

One day, I’ll go.
Not to take photos,
not to check boxes
but to feel the cobblestones beneath my feet,
to breathe in the spices of open-air markets,
to meet strangers who feel
like old friends.

I don’t want a life
that repeats.
I want one that unfolds,
city by city,
until I’m old enough
to know I’ve truly lived.