The invisible war

I carry a war inside me — no guns, no blood, no trenches — just the heavy silence that screams, that crawls under my ribs and digs like a thief in the night. They see me smiling, a painted mask, a borrowed script, never the wild, tangled mess beneath — the dark roots of despair twisting around my broken bones. I am the woman who wakes up twice a day, once in sleep’s soft arms, once in the cold battlefield of my mind, where memories explode like landmines, where joy is a stranger and pain, a relentless lover who never leaves. You ask me what’s wrong? As if you could hold this hurricane in your gentle hands, as if your words could stop the bleeding. But there is no bleeding to be seen, only the invisible wounds — the weight of hollow mornings, the breath held too long, the echo of a scream trapped in a locked cage. I want to scream. I want to burn down this house that holds me prisoner. But I smile. I live. I survive. Because in this war — the invisible war — my soul is the battlefield and hope, the only weapon.