I wake with the sun on my skin,
soft sheets, warm cat, the scent of coffee-
a life stitched together with quiet blessings.
Still, the ache rolls in
like fog over golden fields.

The world burns somewhere-
bombs in bedrooms,
mothers in rubble,
children clutching silence like a toy
they no longer know how to play with.

And here I am,
eyes full of water
for reasons I can't explain,
guilt gnawing like a rat
at the corners of my comfort.

How dare I cry
when my fridge hums with food,
when I have hands to hold,
and laughter that visits,
even if it leaves too soon?

I bury my sadness
under headlines,
stacking grief like sandbags
to hold back my own storm.
But sorrow leaks anyway.

Maybe this is the curse of peace-
to carry the weight
of pain you haven't earned,
to feel broken
in a life that looks whole.

I say thank you
and still feel hollow.
I pray for others
and still feel alone.
And I wonder-
is it weakness,
or just being human,
to weep in the garden
while the world is on fire?

It doesn't ask.
It never knocks.
It just shows up-
mid-sentence,
mid-step,
mid-me.

My body remembers
things I don't want to.
Fluorescent lights,
locked doors,
her voice like venom,
his hands,
the smoke thick enough
to erase a home.

I'm split between moments.
One version of me
is pouring coffee.
The other is back
in a room I begged to leave,
screaming behind my eyes
while my face stays still.

And people say
"but you're safe now."
Like my nervous system
understands logic.
Like my skin
doesn't still flinch at kindness,
like safety is a thing
I've ever known for sure.

I carry too many names.
******. Liar. *****. Crazy.
He. She. It.
I carry too many versions of myself
that other people made
without asking.

And I'm so ******* angry.
At her.
At them.
At the system that locked me up
when all I needed
was to be held without harm.
At the fact that I'm still here
trying to make something soft
out of what they left jagged.

Sometimes I wish
I could go back-
whisper to the kid
who hid under blankets
trying to disappear.
Tell him: you were right.
Tell them: it wasn't your fault.
Tell me
I'd get out.

And I did.
But sometimes,
parts of me still don't know that.
They shake,
they shut down,
they show up uninvited.

And I breathe,
even when it burns.
And I stay,
even when I want to run.
And I write,
because it's the one place
I get to be the one
telling the story.

It starts like static-
a flicker in the dark,
a shift in the air
before the collapse.

I'm washing dishes.
I'm crossing a street.
I'm laughing-
and then I'm not.

Something small tilts the world.
My chest tightens,
my skin doesn't feel like mine,
and the moment swallows me whole.

I hate how they still live in me-
their voices in the corners,
their hands on the memories
I never wanted to keep.

The anger simmers
under every surface.
For what they did,
for what they didn't,
for how they shaped me
without permission.

I trace the outlines of what could’ve been-
a word spoken,
a door opened,
a version of me
they never got to break.

But the past is a house
that locks from the inside.
I scream through the keyhole
and call it healing.

Some days I am a person.
Some days I am a symptom.
I carry both
without dropping either.

I live with tremors.
I move through fog.
I smile like nothing cracked,
and shake
when no one is looking.

And still-
somehow-
I stay.
I breathe.
I come back
to myself.

Again.

I am good at being alone.
The dishes get done
when I feel like doing them.
Silence hangs like a painting
I chose myself.
The hours bend gently around me,
and I call it peace.

I laugh out loud
at my own jokes,
call it self-love,
call it growth.
The plants don’t mind
if I forget to water them,
and neither do I.
This is thriving, I tell myself.

Then I spend three days
with people I love.
Not performing.
Not planning.
Just existing
side by side-
a meal shared
without occasion,
laughter that erupts
without needing a reason.

I remember something
older than language:
that warmth isn’t just a temperature.
That joy has a different flavour
when someone else tastes it too.
I remember that solitude
was never meant to be
a permanent home-
only a resting place.

There is a part of me
that longs for gardens
we plant together,
for walls we build
with laughter baked in.
For shoes at the door
that aren’t all mine.

Maybe the soul remembers
what modern life unlearned-
that we were made
to brush shoulders
to pass bread
to belong.

And maybe
what I called thriving
was just surviving
with the lights on.

This week, I remembered how to hold things gently-
how to sit in a sunlit room with laughter
and not flinch at the brightness.

I made time.
Not borrowed, not stolen, not carved from guilt,
but real time-
offered with open hands
to people who make me feel like more than a body on a schedule.

There were hours that didn’t apologize for passing,
moments that asked nothing from me but presence.
I gave what I had, and still had something left.
Even joy. Even peace.

This week didn’t ask me to survive it.
It let me belong to it.

And now,
at the edge of it all,
I’m quietly afraid-
that I will look back on these days
from some far-off place
where time slips like water,
and wonder if this was just
a rare breath
before the drowning begins again.

The sixteen-year-old dishwasher at work told me she checks the schedule-hoping we’ll share the same shifts. She said she missed me when I took a day off.

A new hire said I have a “wholesome vibe,” like it was the kindest thing he could offer.

A new friend and I sat in his new room, talking about how hard it is to make friends as adults-how rare it is when it feels this easy.

My best friend, miles away, messages to say she got the postcard I sent. She says she loves me.

The one I’m dating tells me I can make mistakes without being a mistake.

A stranger-turned-friend listed all the things she liked about me-minutes after we met. I didn’t know what to say. I smile for hours.

My six-year-old cousins video call me, bursting with stories about their day with my parents. They wave a pride flag on a picnic blanket in the backyard, proud of their brave big cousin. They correct anyone who calls me by my deadname like it’s the easiest truth in the world.

My mom checks in.
She knows it’s been a heavy week.

My dad spends his free time under the hood of my car, my mom hands me her keys so I don’t have to worry.

I visit an old friend's memorial, tell him everything I wish I could have said in person. The wind listens. I think he does, too.

My best friend and I scream old songs in the car, drive to a park by the water, swing until we’re dizzy and aching, and laugh because we’re not kids anymore-but we still want to feel like it.

Another friend is moving out on his own. He asks me to help him make the space feel like home. I say yes, of course. It's an honor.

A best friend and I trade 'I miss yous' like warm hugs un words.

I buy concert tickets for another best friend. It’s one of my favorite artists. We’ll sing ourselves hoarse.

I text my childhood best friend: Happy Pride. Two words that carry years.

I go to a Pride party with my parents and friends. I feel the weight of belonging and it is light.

I plan to trade plants with a girl from work. Roots change hands. Something grows.

And for a moment-no, longer than a moment-I realize:I am overflowing with love.