The Sound That Carries Me

When I lie in bed, the train always finds me. The wheels slam against the tracks, loud and unforgiving, like something inside me that never learned how to rest. The horn cuts through the dark in broken intervals. Too close, too real, impossible to ignore. It drags me back to the fields of my childhood. Back when I thought life was simple. It wasn't. I just didn't have the language for how heavy it already felt. I was small, trying to survive things I didn't know how to name yet.

I lie here now, staring at the ceiling, listening like the sound might tell me what comes next. Some nights it feels like the train is leaving without me. Other nights, I tell myself it's proof that movement still exists, that not everything is stuck just because I am.

The horn doesn't comfort me. It challenges me.

It reminds me of everything I lived through and didn't let kill me. I don't know exactly where that train is going. I just know it is going forward. And for now, that has to be enough.