The Edge of Beginning
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams." — Eleanor Roosevelt
It’s a new beginning.
But beginnings don’t always feel like hope.
Sometimes they feel like death.
Sometimes they feel like standing in the ashes
of everything you thought you needed.
I let go of the mask. The one I wore for years,
The one that smiled when I wanted to scream,
The one that said “I’m okay” when I was not okay.
Now I walk barefaced and it hurts.
The air is sharp. The silence is loud.
The truth is heavier than the lies ever were.
I feel lighter,
But only because I lost something
I thought would never leave.
I feel happier, but it is a shallow kind of happy,
The kind that cracks at the edges,
The kind that fades when the lights go out.
The past follows me, its claws in my back.
The chains rattle in every step I take.
I carry regrets like stones in my pockets,
and every time I reach for better,
Guilt. Oh, guilt whispers
“Who are you to want more?
Who are you to dream?”
Would they ever understand?
That depression has an end,
But not the kind they think.
Not healing, just exhaustion.
You get tired of drowning,
So you teach yourself to float.
You smile, you laugh, you say “I’m fine,”
Because the only other option
is to let go completely.
Would they understand
that sometimes the smile is survival?
That sometimes it is the only thread
holding me together?
Would they understand the nights
I lay awake begging for answers,
clutching the edge, praying not to slip?
Would they notice if I disappeared?
Or would my absence
be easier to love
than my presence ever was?
I am cracked.
I am bleeding.
I am tired of hurting.
I am tired of pretending.
And sometimes
I am tired of living.
But still
I am here.
And maybe that counts for something.
Maybe being alive,
even when it hurts,
is a kind of courage.
Maybe the scars on my body,
on my heart,
are proof that I chose to stay
when leaving seemed easier.
It’s a new beginning,
but not a clean one.
I carry the past with me.
I carry the guilt.
I carry the silence of those
who never asked if I was okay.
But I also carry the choice
to breathe,
to fight,
to try again.
If they don’t understand,
if they don’t care,
I will still try.
Even when my hands shake.
Even when my chest aches.
Even when my smile feels fake.
Because beginnings are not about being whole.
They are about learning to live
with the broken pieces.
They are about choosing to stay,
when staying feels impossible.
They are about whispering,
again and again:
I am not fine.
But I am here.
And for now,
that will have to be enough.
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