Finding Strength in the Face of Chronic Pain, Trauma, and Grief: A Poem
In the silence of night,
I collapse beneath the weight,
each breath a whisper,
each heartbeat a reminder
of shadows that linger,
the echoes of a past,
like a ghost that wraps around my chest,
tightens its grip until
the world blurs at the edges.
Weak in the knees, I fall,
not to the ground, but inward,
into the depths of memories
that dance like flickering candles,
filling the room with fear and fire,
the warmth a cruel disguise
for the chill of forgotten laughter.
I want to shout,
but the words are stuck in my throat,
like thorns tangled in a vine,
reminding me of the moments
when joy should have bloomed,
but instead, darkness painted its canvas,
with strokes of pain,
a masterpiece I never wished to own.
Daylight comes,
and with it, the pretense of normal,
a mask I wear as I step outside,
smiling for the world,
while inside, a storm rages,
navigating memories that refuse to fade,
each corner I turn
a reminder of innocence lost
and battles fought in silence,
the scars invisible to the eye.
I roam the streets,
a ghost in the open,
haunted by a silence
that speaks louder than screams,
the undercurrent of my existence,
a heavy cloak I drape over my shoulders,
each thread spun from a story
too fragile to tell.
In the quiet hours,
when the world sleeps,
my thoughts spiral,
the walls close in,
and I wrestle with shadows,
an unseen fight,
the heaviness of what should have been;
dreams turned to ashes,
memories that flicker
like fireflies in a jar,
glowing briefly before
they too fade away.
What does it mean to heal,
when the path is littered
with reminders of a storm,
when the sun shines bright,
yet the clouds hover just above,
like a dam waiting to break?
I search for solace
in the mundane,
in the cadence of the everyday,
the laughter of children,
the warmth of a hand,
the safety of presence,
but all feels tinged with the grey.
I am learning to breathe,
to reclaim the rhythm of my heart,
to stand again,
even if my knees tremble,
to gather the pieces of myself,
shattered like glass on the floor,
to find beauty in the cracks,
to let the light seep through,
to understand that the dark
does not define me,
but rather,
it carves out space
for the light to enter.
I carry my story,
not as a weight,
but as a beacon,
a testament to strength,
to resilience found in scars,
to the hope that lingers in the dawn,
soft and new,
like petals opening to the sun,
for beneath the shadows,
I am still here,
and in the depths of grief,
I will rise,
finding my way back
to a world that is mine
to reclaim,
step by trembling step.
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