A battle that many have faced

a shadow stitched beneath my skin,

each day a mirror framed in blame,

each breath a battle I’d not win.

I walked through rooms that felt too loud,

but silence pressed me harder still;

my smile, a shape beneath a shroud,

my laughter—hollow, forced, and shallow.

The nights were longest in my mind,

where echoes pulled me further down;

a thousand voices, harsh, unkind,

would tie my hope and let it drown.

Yet even there, inside the ache,

a flicker sparked, a fragile thread;

a whisper saying, “You can wake.

You are not only what you’ve bled.”

And so I rose—though not with ease,

and not as whole as I had been—

but step by step, through fractured seas,

I learned to let the light back in.