Weight That Thought Me

I carried stones inside my chest, Each one a name I could not speak. They built a wall beneath my breast, A fortress made of worn-out ache. I carried rivers in my veins, The floods of all I held too long. They carved their maps through years of strain, A quiet, slow, unspoken song. I carried winters in my bones, The weight of every frozen day. I learned to sit with buried tones, To breathe when everything was grey. I carried shadows in my spine, The silhouettes of what I lost. I made their whispers into mine, I bore their cold, I paid their cost. I carried echoes in my skin, Of hands that touched and then withdrew. The ghosts of all I'd never win Still burned like dawn’s unfinished blue. I carried silence in my breath, The quiet years that left no trace. I let them settle, soft as death, And still I wore them like a grace. I carried gardens in my scars, The roots of pain that bloomed instead. I found the stars behind the bars, I found the light in what was dead. I carried flight within the fall, The broken wings, the fractured sky. I learned to rise despite it all, To find the how without the why. I carried storms that never stayed, I carried suns that never shone. And every time I knelt and prayed, I stood again, remade, alone. I carried weight until one day, The weight became the wind, the air. And in the breaking, I obeyed— The weight that taught me how to bear.