Tattoos the other side of pain.

They told me healing was quiet. That it came in white rooms, with gentle voices and softened edges. But no one tells you how loud the breaking is—how bones remember the fall longer than they remember standing. I didn't heal gently. I clawed my way out, bleeding truths I had swallowed for years.

The storm didn’t pass over me. It passed through—and left its hands inside me, rearranging the furniture of who I thought I was. I didn’t come back the same. I didn’t want to.

I stitched myself with silver thread, not to erase the seams, but to honor them. I kissed my bruises like old friends and wore my grief like a coat in the summer—until I could finally take it off without apology.

There are places in me no one can map. Caves where the echoes live, still singing the names of things I’ve let go. I don’t call it survival anymore. Survival is the bare minimum. This is resurrection.

And if you ask what saved me, I’ll tell you—

Scars that learned to sing instead of sting.

That’s where the fire stayed. That’s where the light got in.

That’s where I met myself for the first time—

and finally, she didn’t flinch.