The Quiet Fight

No one sees the battlefield

inside my mind—

how it wages war in whispers,

not screams.

I smile in daylight

while dragging shadows

that bite my ankles

beneath the surface.

There are mornings

where the sunlight feels

like an interrogation lamp.

Where brushing my teeth

feels like climbing Everest.

But I rise—

not gracefully,

not like heroes in films,

but with the slow defiance

of someone who refuses

to disappear.

Healing is not a lightning bolt.

It is rain—

soft,

persistent,

rewriting the earth one drop at a time.

And I—

I am learning to be

a garden

not a grave.