Yeah, we’ve got holes in our lives-
the kind that don’t close,
just scab over and split again.

Maybe this is the first day of my life,
or maybe it’s the day I remembered who the hell I am.

The fighter's back.
Not the brave kind,
not the noble kind.
The kind that comes when nothing else works.
The kind that shows up when the world won't let you rest.

She doesn’t cry.
She doesn’t feel.
She doesn't love.

She survives.
That's it.

She’s cold steel and clenched jaw,
no softness,
no room for it.
The heart? Closed. Locked.
You won’t find it in her.
Because feeling would break her-
and she’s got no time to break.

I wanted ease.
I wanted to be gentle,
especially now...
Carrying life inside me.

But gentle doesn’t work in a world that bites first.
And so she came back.
The other me.
The one who doesn’t flinch.
The one who doesn’t hope.

She's savage.
She's smoke.
She'll do what has to be done
and feel nothing.

Don’t mistake it-
she's not here because of love.
She’s here in spite of it.

For my child,
I wanted peace.
But what they’ll see now is a woman
with eyes like war
and hands that only shake from adrenaline.

There’s no love with her.
Just the fire.
And in the fire?
No one survives unchanged.
Not even me.