The Echo I Almost Forgot

There was a time I almost quit—

When silence weighed more than hope could lift.

When dreams cracked like thin, winter ice,

And I forgot how stars dared to rise.

I wore smiles like borrowed clothes,

Each one stitched from a different sorrow.

Every laugh, a brittle disguise,

Hiding bruises I thought no one could recognize.

But listen—

The heart does not shatter for nothing.

The break is a doorway,

The ache is a summons,

The fall is an urgent rebirth.

I stood on the edge of my undoing,

And found, tucked inside my trembling hands,

A stubborn ember—

a whisper that said:

Not yet.

Not before the story is sung,

Not before the dance is danced,

Not before the ache births a light fierce enough

To split the dark wide open.

So I stayed.

And built from my shatters a cathedral,

Taller than anything despair ever tried to take from me.

You, who feel like the night will never end—

Your bones were built from sunrise.

Your soul is a seed, not a tombstone.

Bend, don't break.

Fall, but rise louder.

Weep, but wake up wilder.

The echo you almost forgot?

It’s your own voice,

Calling you back

To the miracle of trying again.

"If this stirred something in you, leave a ❤️, share it with someone who needs it, and remember—sometimes the softest embers light the fiercest fires. Keep going." 🔥