It happened,

  and the world didn’t stop.

  The sun rose like it had nothing to apologize for,

  cars kept moving,

  people kept laughing,

  and I stood there—

  split open,

  quietly bleeding in ways no one could see.

  They say time heals everything,

  but time just kept walking,

  dragging me behind it

  like a shadow that didn’t want to follow.

  I learned to breathe around the memory,

  to smile with a mouth that didn’t trust itself,

  to carry a body

  that no longer felt like mine.

  Everyone wanted the story

  but no one wanted the truth—

  that survival isn’t brave

  or poetic

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  or clean.

  It’s waking up every day

  with hands that shake

  and still using them.

  It’s stitching yourself together

  with thread made of fury and softness,

  trying not to hate the skin

  you didn’t ask to be trapped in.

  It’s seeing your own reflection

  and wondering if the ghost looking back

  is stronger than you

  or just better at pretending.

  And life goes on—

  mercilessly,

  thoughtlessly,

  obedient to its own forward motion.

  But so do I.

  Not gracefully,

  not beautifully,

  not the way stories say I should—

  but stubbornly,

  angrily,

  with a pulse that refuses to quit.

  If there’s power in me,

  it’s this:

  I exist.

  Still.

  Here.

  Anyway.

  And one day,

  when the world looks again—

  not at what happened to me

  but at who I became despite it—

  it will learn what strength really is.

  Not the lack of breaking,

  but the choice to keep going

  after you already have.

  And life goes on.

  And so do I.