The stomach knows what the mind forgets
a hollow vessel curved to hold
all we've swallowed but cannot speak:
grief folded into itself like origami,
words collapsed to fit inside the body's vault.

We carry silence there, dense as stone.
The unspoken grows heavier
settles deeper beneath the ribs,
becomes the ghost that haunts our hunger.

And in the chest, breath hesitates,
draws itself thin and trembling,
afraid to disturb what's settled below.
Each inhalation measured and cautious,
each exhale holding back its full release

as if the body understands
that to breathe completely
might dislodge the carefully packed archive
of everything we couldn't bear to name.

I’ve learned to love myself,
to face what was broken and turn it into something strong.
Healing hasn’t always been easy,
but it’s given me a respect for my own journey
that no one else can define.

Through this, I’ve realized that I don’t need to change
just because others can’t see who I truly am.
People might not always understand me,
but I know in my heart I’m becoming someone I can be proud of
and I love the person I’m still growing into.

There’s a quiet confidence that comes from being true to myself.
I don’t need to fit the mold,
or hide the parts of me that make me different.
Being myself gives me strength in a world
where so many trade their truth for approval.

Nobody can take away what I’ve built inside
the self-respect, the pride, the love I have for who I am.
This is my foundation.
And I live by this:
“I’d rather be hated for who I am
than loved for who I am not.”

I hope one day
I can look back on this version of me
with softness,
with pride not because I endured,
but because I finally broke free.

Free from the need
to fight for my worth.
Free from the ache
of proving I deserve to be loved.

I hope one day
it’s just given.
Offered like sunlight,
like breath.
Given because I exist,
not because I performed,
not because I fought.

It exhausts me
this daily battle
between who I know I am
and what the world
makes me beg for.

I love myself.
But that doesn’t erase the ache.
That doesn’t make the nights less quiet,
or the waiting less long.

One day,
I want to look at myself
and see someone loved
without question,
without condition
not earned, not explained.
Just known.

I want to know how it feels
for love to feel like home,
not like war.

And until then,
I will keep moving forward,
even tired,
even aching,
carrying the quiet hope
that one day,
it won’t feel this hard.

That one day
will come.

At night,
when my mind won't stop
and every thought feels loud
I picture you next to me.

I see your face clearly
like you're actually here.
Your breathing steady,
your warmth beside me
and suddenly,
everything just stops.

It's quiet.
Calm.

I close my eyes,
feeling safe,
believing for a moment
you're really here,
lying next to me,
telling me it’s okay
to let go,
to sleep.

And somehow,
just imagining you
is enough.

It’s raining again
how familiar,
like a breath I’ve held for years
and forgot how to exhale.

I find myself wishing
the pain would rise
sharpen, sting,
cut deeper than it should.

There’s something honest in the ache,
something warm in the cold.
It hurts,
but it’s the only thing
that still feels true.

There’s a comfort in hurting,
as if the storm understands
what silence never could.
As if the ache knows
what was lost
better than words ever will.

So let it fall.
Let it soak the skin
and whisper old truths.
Because in the end,
it’s not the memory that lingers
it’s the way it still
makes me feel alive.

They ask where we go when the breathing stops
when the lungs grow still and the hands fall open.
But nothing in nature is lost,
only changed.

Your atoms, forged in the cores of stars,
traveled billions of years to make you.
Each carbon thread in your chest
once belonged to a forest,
a comet,
a lover’s whispered breath in ancient dusk.
Energy doesn’t vanish it shifts.
That’s the law. Thermodynamics, first and final.

You were never just skin and thought.
You were borrowed stardust,
held together by delicate electromagnetic songs,
a fleeting arrangement in the symphony of entropy.
So when your heart slows and your neurons dim,
the song doesn’t end.
It just passes on
into roots, into rain, into flame.

You’ll feed the trees that cradle new nests.
You’ll drift in the ocean’s salt kiss,
become part of someone’s laugh,
the warmth between clasped hands
on a night when someone needs reminding
they are not alone.

The mind yes, it’s complex:
trillions of synapses,
patterns folding into patterns
like galaxies inside thought.
And still,
consciousness remains a riddle
even the brightest minds can’t fully name.
But if it is energy
a field, a wave,
then who’s to say it doesn’t echo?
Resonate?
Return?

I like to think
you become a language the universe still speaks
in wind through grass,
in quantum fluctuations,
in the silence before someone says,
I miss you,
and suddenly, they feel you there.

We do not vanish.
We reappear.
In form, in feeling, in frequency.
Every goodbye is a redistribution
a love note sent across the fabric of space,
waiting to be read
by someone
who still believes
we are all
one thing
reaching for itself.

I'm sitting outside.  
The air smells like old dreams
like wet soil and cracked pavement after a storm,  
like rustling leaves that once sounded  
like lullabies  
before I even knew what pain was.

It smells like the quiet corners of childhood  
I used to hide in,  
where sunlight poured through tree branches  
like stained glass,  
and the world  
just for a moment
felt safe.

It smells like the day I first realized  
I didn’t need to be anything  
to be loved.  
Not smart,  
not strong,  
not impressive.  
Just… here.

Back then, I belonged to the wind,  
to the soft hum of bees in the distance,  
to the ants weaving stories through grass blades.  
I didn’t have to earn my place.  
No one was counting.  
I was alive
and that was the miracle.

Now I understand why it felt like home.  
Nature doesn’t ask for reasons.  
It doesn’t assign value.  
It just is
and in its presence,  
so was I.

I think happiness lives there,  
in the child I buried under performance.  
The one who laughed  
just because the clouds were shaped like animals,  
who believed puddles could be oceans,  
who never asked  
“Am I enough?”
because enoughness had not yet been sold.

That child still lives in me,  
beneath the weight of doing and proving,  
beneath all the names I gave myself  
just to be loved.

Maybe the secret is to find him again
to sit in stillness,  
and let the world fall away  
until all that’s left  
is the sound of leaves,  
the smell of sky,  
and the feeling  
of being alive without permission.

He’s still there,  
quiet,  
waiting,  
barefoot in the grass.

And the wind hasn’t forgotten him.

They chase the sun with hurried hands,
trading moments for the next ascent
while I sit still, a book half-read,
beneath the hush where daylight went.

A glass of red, a bite of cheese,
the scent of oil, the stroke of brush
what joy they miss in chasing more,
while I find heaven in the hush.

By riverside, the pages turn,
each word a ripple in my mind.
They run to catch what won’t be held
I breathe, and let the world unwind.

The wind speaks softly through the reeds,
the trees bow down to let me pass.
No need for gold, or shining heights
just painted skies and fields of grass.

I do not envy all they seek,
the climb, the crowd, the constant race.
My wealth is in the quiet things
in light, in life, in open space.

So let them move, and I will stay
where stillness hums like violin,
content to live the slower way
and find my joy in everything.

Sometimes I sit and stare into the sky
and wonder:
Does anything ever truly last,
or do all things leave quietly
with the changing seasons?

I look to the clouds with gratitude
because I know one day
I won’t be able to see them again.

There’s a tenderness in their passing.
A softness in knowing
that beauty visits briefly,
then disappears like breath into air.

I sometimes find myself
caught between wonder and distance
watching something magical
while dissociating in my own mind,
aware, even as it unfolds,
that I may never feel this exact moment again.

That thought makes things sharper.
Makes them more fragile, more precious.
I don’t hold them tighter.
I just watch.
And let them pass through me
like light through glass,
leaving a trace,
but never staying.

Maybe that’s what it means to live:
to witness beauty,
to feel the ache of its leaving,
and to still look up at the sky,
thankful for what remains.

I wake to the soft rustle of morning,
yet it's your whisper I always hear,
lingering quietly in sunlight’s gold,
in each breath, you're vividly clear.

As coffee swirls in porcelain white,
your laughter ripples through the steam
you are warmth held in my fingertips,
the gentle haunt within each dream.

Through crowded streets, you're gentle wind,
brushing past as a fleeting sigh;
your perfume lives in blooms of spring,
each petal kissed as you drift by.

I see your smile in evening skies,
your eyes reflected in starlight gleam,
guiding my thoughts like ancient maps,
comforting shadows in night's soft scheme.

And when silence embraces midnight,
you become the lullaby unsung
a quiet spell cast on my solitude,
the magic left when love was young.

You're woven deep, my life's soft thread;
I carry your magic everywhere,
comforted by visions softly led.