Never Lost

You were not lost.

Please, hear me when I say this with every beat of my chest -

you were never lost.

You didn’t wander too far.

You didn’t forget the way.

You didn’t ruin everything.

You were buried.

By life.

By grief.

By the quiet kinds of pain

that don't scream,

but sink in like winter into bones -

the kind no one sees,

and yet it breaks you all the same.

You were buried by expectations

you never agreed to,

by roles you never chose,

by the weight of being “fine”

when you were crumbling beneath it all.

And no one saw it, did they?

They saw your smile,

your small nods,

your polite yeses,

and they thought:

“She’s okay.”

“He’s strong.”

“They’re always the one holding it together.”

But they didn’t see

how much of you had gone silent,

how many parts had gone still,

how many mornings you stared at the ceiling

wondering how you’d make it through the next five minutes.

It wasn’t that you stopped caring -

it was that caring had become a weight

you couldn’t lift anymore.

And still -

you showed up.

You existed.

Sometimes that was all.

And sometimes, that was everything.

You were not broken beyond repair.

You were not weak.

You were not a failure.

You were buried -

under years of having to survive.

Under trauma that came uninvited

and stayed far too long.

Under love that came with conditions,

with silence, with strings.

Under the lies you were taught to believe about yourself.

But what they’ll never understand

is what it took to dig your way out.

With no map.

No help.

No certainty.

Just your bare hands

and a will to keep going

even when everything inside you said,

“Why?”

You didn’t rise in a blaze of glory.

You rose slowly.

Desperately.

Some days, inch by inch.

Some days, not at all.

Some days, you slid back under.

But still -

you came back.

You clawed through the soil of your past,

through the suffocating weight of your own thoughts,

through every lie that told you

you were too far gone.

And you did it not because you were fearless,

but because something inside you,

some ancient spark,

some forgotten ember,

Whispered -

“There’s more.”

More than this pain.

More than this silence.

More than being buried in a life

that never saw you for all that you are.

And maybe you didn’t believe it.

Maybe you still don’t.

But you listened anyway.

And that -

that is the definition of courage.

The kind of courage no one applauds,

because no one sees it.

But I do.

I see it.

I see you.

I see how you rose with dirt still under your nails,

how you carried your heart in trembling hands,

how you dared to hope again

when hope had once betrayed you.

And I know,

maybe the world doesn’t look all that different now.

Maybe the sun still rises the same.

Maybe you still feel like you’re learning how to breathe again.

But this -

this is everything.

Because you were not lost.

You were not gone.

You were never beyond saving.

You were buried.

And still -

you rose.

With nothing but the quiet ache of wanting to be more,

the worn-out whisper of “maybe I matter,”

and a love for yourself so deep,

so hidden,

you didn’t even know it was still alive.

But it was.

And it is.

And you are.

You are here.

Not broken—rebuilt.

Not empty—deep.

Not ruined—reborn.

So don’t ever let them say

you were just lost.

No -

you were a miracle in the making,

fighting through the dark

with nothing but your own heartbeat

as a guide.

And now you're here. And now you're home:)