Cathedral of the Unfinished

I was not born in a garden.

I was born on a battlefield

where silence was louder than thunder

and grief wore my name like armor.

There are days I still wake up

with loss sitting on my chest,

a weight I pretend 

is just muscle.

I have carried anger

like Achilles carried his blade;

sharp, necessary,

heavy enough to cut the hands that hold it. 

Sometimes I miss

who I was

before I understood

that people can disappear.

There are nights

I descend into myself

like a pilgrim without a map,

corridors of doubt,

rooms lined with every word

I wish I had said louder.

I have knelt before mirrors

as if they were judges.

I have counted my flaws

like prayer beads.

I have mistaken survival 

for strength. 

I have wanted love

like oxygen,

and feared it

just the same.

But listen:

Even in the underworld 

there are stars

if you dare to look up.

Even in the wreckage

there are bones

that refuse to break.

Time may bruise the body,

may fracture pride,

may scatter the voices we once followed;

but it cannot erase

the girl who kept getting up.

The girl who learned 

how to breathe underwater

and call it living. 

I am not the rage.

I am not the ruin.

I am not the ache

that visits at 2 a.m.

I am the cathedral

built from what tried to destroy me.

And if time comes with its steady hands

to fold me into dust;

let it find 

that something in me

still burns.