Grateful: Came Back From the Dead Wearing Lightning

Grateful: Came Back From the Dead Wearing Lightning

I’m grateful — 
not cute, not calm, not clean,
but feral‑in‑the‑veins, holy‑obscene,
gratitude dripping like gasoline 
on every bridge I burned at seventeen.

I’m grateful like a woman who flirted with death,
with a.5 BAC on her breath,
kissed the void, tasted its depth,
and rose up laughing like,
“Baby, I’m not done yet.”

I’m grateful like a sinner turned scholar,
a phoenix in a collar,
a data‑science baller 
who codes her comeback hotter than any shot in a water‑downed bar.

I’m grateful for my kids — 
these miracles I made 
while I was half‑alive, half‑frayed,
yet they grew into legends 
even when I was a ghost in the shade. 
They’re proof that love can bloom 
in the ruins I once laid.

I’m grateful for Aunt Mary — 
my prayer‑slinging mercenary,
the woman who held my name steady 
when my pulse wasn’t ready.

I’m grateful for Mom,
for my brother’s calm,
for my special‑needs sister 
whose love hits like a psalm — 
pure, unshaken,
the kind of devotion 
that never breaks,
never fakes,
never leaves 
even when the world quakes.

I’m grateful for every blackout night,
every coma‑kissed fight,
every time my soul slipped out of sight — 
because the darkness taught me 
how to bite my way back 
into the light.

I’m grateful for the ones who stayed,
and the ones who fled,
the ones who prayed,
and the ones who left me for dead — 
every lover, every liar,
every ghost in my head. 
They carved me into a woman 
who walks like fire 
and rises like she’s newly wed 
to her own damn power instead.

I’m grateful for sobriety — 
not the soft kind,
but the erotic, volcanic, spine‑aligned,
sweat‑on‑the‑lip,
hips‑in‑the‑grip 
rebirth of choosing myself 
over the poison that once made me slip.

I’m grateful for me — 
the wild one,
the undone,
the comeback spun 
from the ashes of every almost‑gone sun. 
The scientist of survival,
the priestess of revival,
the woman whose pulse is a rival 
to anything that ever tried 
to take her arrival.

This is my gratitude list — 
raw, ruthless, kissed by the abyss,
a resurrection wrapped in a twist,
a love letter to every version of me 
that refused to be dismissed.

If it sounds crazy,
if it sounds erotic,
if it sounds like a riot in cosmic rhyme — 
good.

Because gratitude like mine 
was never meant 
to sound polite.