Happy Fourth.
The neighbors cheer,
the children laugh,
the sky ignites with every crack.
But me?
I hear a different soundtrack.
I hear the past.
I hear the screams.
I hear the shattered, broken dreams.
I hear the silence in between
where I still wake and relive scenes.
One whole year.
Three hundred sixty-five damn days,
yet somehow I\'m still lost in that maze.
The calendar changed.
The seasons passed.
But trauma is a ghost
that never stays in the past.
It follows.
It swallows.
It hollows the bone.
It turns a crowded room
into feeling alone.
One year ago today,
my world was ripped away.
Not stolen.
Not misplaced.
Not gently erased.
No.
It was shattered.
Scattered.
Battered and bruised.
And every piece of me
was forced to pay dues.
The fireworks go boom.
And my heart follows suit.
The sound hits my chest
like a steel-toed boot.
Another explosion.
Another attack.
Another freight train
running me over the tracks.
The whistle blows.
The memories know.
And suddenly I\'m not here anymore.
I\'m standing in yesterday,
frozen in place,
trying to escape a nightmare
wearing a familiar face.
Everybody says,
\"Just let it go.\"
As if trauma is a coat
you can throw in the snow.
As if survival is simple.
As if healing is fast.
As if the human soul
wasn\'t built to remember the past.
I remember.
God, I remember.
I remember too much.
The panic.
The terror.
The poison of touch.
The feeling that safety
had vanished from sight.
The way my whole world
collapsed in one night.
I remember the anger.
I remember the fear.
I remember surviving
another damn year.
And that\'s the cruel joke
nobody sees.
You survive the moment,
but not always the memories.
The bruises may fade.
The wounds may close.
But trauma grows roots
where nobody knows.
Deep in the marrow.
Deep in the brain.
Deep in the places
still aching with pain.
Happy Fourth.
May your memories attack.
Mine showed up early
and never unpacked.
They sleep in my shadows.
They hide in my skin.
They\'re waiting for fireworks
to wake them again.
Every flash is a trigger.
Every bang is a key.
Unlocking a prison
still buried in me.
And I\'m angry.
Dear God, I\'m angry.
Angry enough
to choke on the flame.
Angry that I carry
the weight and the shame.
Angry that monsters
can walk away free.
While the aftermath
still lives inside me.
But listen.
Listen close.
Because there is something
the memories hate.
Something they never expected
when they sealed my fate.
I am still breathing.
Still standing.
Still here.
Even when I\'m drowning
in another year\'s fear.
The train may hit me.
The tracks may bend.
The nightmares may whisper
that this is the end.
But every Fourth of July
that I survive,
is proof
that despite what happened,
despite what was taken,
despite every scar
that refuses to slack,
I am still alive
while the memories attack.
So let the fireworks thunder.
Let the whole sky crack.
I\'ll stand in the ashes
and stare right back.
Because one year later,
through sorrow and pain,
through tears that fall
like relentless rain,
through every flashback,
every wound,
every crack,
I\'m still here.
And the memories
can choke
on that.