The Way the Body Remembers
Cliché: “Time heals all wounds.”
(Irritation: It implies passivity, ignoring the ache, the effort, the mess of healing.)
Better Version:
Healing is not the passing of time—
it is the choosing to keep walking with the limp.
Poem
They say time heals all wounds,
but time does nothing
without your hands in the dirt.
It just sits there,
ticks forward,
waits for you to move.
Healing is not forgetting.
It’s waking up and feeding the dog,
even when your ribs still echo
where the grief pressed in.
It’s stitching yourself back together
with thread made of old laughter
and apologies you’ll never get.
It’s watering the plants
even though you once killed every green thing
in the house
because the light hurt your eyes.
It’s how you flinch
when someone touches your shoulder
like they used to—
and how you breathe through it anyway.
Some days, healing looks like
coffee left to go cold
because you finally called someone back.
Some days, it’s just
not crying when their name comes up.
You walk differently now.
Yes.
But still—
you walk.
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