What The Fire Didn’t Take

The power of grief can consume you—?not all at once,? but like water swelling inside a sinking ship. ?Quiet at first,? until you're drowning in the silence. It doesn’t ask permission. ?It wraps around your ribs,? pressing against your lungs? until breath becomes a labor ?and joy feels like betrayal. I’ve felt it—? its cold hands gripping my ankles, ?dragging me into the undercurrent ?of mornings I didn’t want to wake up for. ?Nights that screamed louder than any wound. Grief doesn’t knock.? It moves in.? It eats at your voice,? makes you forget how you sounded? before the breaking. There were days I didn’t know myself— ?just a shell wrapped in memory, ?held together by muscle and habit.? People smiled at me like I was still there. ?I smiled back, like I believed them. But beneath the heaviness,? somewhere quiet,? was a flicker. Not of hope.? Hope was too loud. Just… a flicker.? Of me. The me that still aches ?but also remembers. ?The me who carries loss like a second heartbeat— ?faint, but constant.? The me who learned? that surviving isn’t weakness,? and softness can be sacred. Grief didn’t leave. ?It never does. ?It lingers— in the shadows of laughter,? in the pause before sleep, ?in the songs I used to love? but now skip without thinking. But I stopped waiting for it to let go.? I stopped hoping to be “unbroken.”? Because maybe healing isn’t light and triumph— ?maybe it’s walking with the weight? and refusing to lay down. So I carry it.? Not proudly, not poetically—? just honestly.? Some days it wins. But some days—I do. And for now, ?that’s enough.