How to Exist

Begin before language. Curl into the shadow of a breath. Listen for the pulse that existed before your name. You do not need a word to be real. You were always the story.

In case of absence, leave traces — a sock beneath the bed, a fingerprint on the glass, a whisper in someone else’s dream. You are here, even if no one looks.

Write letters to the version of you that never arrived. Say: I missed you. You would have loved the rain today. It wasn’t your fault. Burn the letter. Then listen for the echo in your bones.

Feed yourself tenderness. Boil water slowly. Name your scars in alphabetical order. Wrap your arms around the version of you that flinches when loved. She still thinks love is the sound before something breaks.

Reclaim every part of you they tried to erase: the softness, the too-muchness, the grief that leaks through locked doors. Call it yours. Stitch it into your name.

Do not mistake silence for peace. Some silences are lullabies. Others are cages. Learn to tell them apart. And when silence hurts—scream in color.

Archive the small joys. A laugh in the throat of night. The warmth of hands under soap-slick water. The way moths return to light without apology. Tattoo these things behind your eyelids.

Let yourself be ridiculous. Dance without rhythm. Invent a new constellation and give it your name. Cry at cartoons. Laugh in cemeteries. Exist loudly in spaces that told you to shrink.

Refuse to disappear quietly. You are not a ghost. You are the haunting. The room still trembles with your arrival.

Talk to the child that left. Say: I remember you. I’m sorry I let them convince you to go. You were never the problem. Come home now. It’s safe.

Bury nothing that still sings. If a memory aches, let it dance. If a wound hums, listen. Not everything broken needs to be hidden. Some things bloom from the fracture.

In the event of forgetting, forgive yourself. Memory is slippery. So is survival. If you dropped pieces of yourself along the way, trust that someone—somewhere—is carrying them for you.

Name your shadows. If they follow you, let them sit. Pour them tea. Ask them what they’re trying to say. Sometimes the darkest things are just lonely.

Make a ritual of staying. Mark days by the tenderness you gave. Light candles for the versions of you that kept going. Let the world know: you chose to remain. Even when it was easier to vanish.

Love like it might save a life. Because it might. Because it already has. Because you’re still here.

Don’t look for symmetry. You are not a poem that needs to rhyme. You are the wind in the trees. The skipped heartbeat. The miracle that cracked the pattern open.

Talk to the moon like she’s your sister. She’s seen you on your worst nights. And she kept showing up anyway.

Let anger live, but not lead. It can burn the road, or light your way. Choose wisely.

Every wound you survived is a language. Translate yourself. You are allowed to speak in stutters and still be understood.

Grow something. Even if it dies. The trying matters. The reaching.

Remember: grief is love with nowhere to go. Let it walk beside you. Let it hum you to sleep.

You are allowed to stop hoping some days. But know this: hope is stubborn. It will wait at the door, even if you forget its name.

Befriend contradiction. You are soft and furious. Whole and fractured. A question and an answer. All at once.

Reflections lie. Sometimes the mirror needs cleaning. Sometimes you do. Sometimes, it’s just broken.

Rest. Even if the world keeps spinning. Even if no one else stops. You are allowed to stop.

The body remembers. Be gentle with it, especially when it trembles.

Your softness is not a liability. It is the language of the future. Speak it fluently.

You owe no one an explanation for the shape your healing takes. Let it be wild. Let it be slow. Let it be uneven.

If you find a moment that feels safe — even a single breath — memorize it.

There will be days when joy feels like betrayal. Take it anyway. It’s the rebel’s weapon.

Trace your scars like constellations. They are how you’ll navigate home.

There is no correct way to be here. Only ways to stay.

Light candles. Even for the things that have no graves.

The future is not a straight line. It’s a spiral. You will return to yourself. Again and again. But each time, more whole.

Say your name out loud. Even if it trembles. Even if no one answers. You are still here.

What you lost is real. What you became afterward is too.

Leave a note. On a bathroom mirror, in a library book, under a stone. Something like: “You are not alone. I was here too.”

Cry when the wind shifts. Dance when it rains. How else will the others know they can?

Speak to the silence. It is listening. And sometimes, if you wait long enough, it answers.

Forgive yourself for forgetting. Forgive yourself for remembering too much.

You are not a ghost. You are not a glitch. You are not what they erased.

You are the thread still shining in the dark.

Exist like it matters. Because it does. Because you do.

And if you ever vanish again — we will write you back into the story. Every time.