A flame 🔥 in fragile glass

The unspoken weight of pain, strength, and survival.

I wear a body that wars against me,
a ribcage that tightens like a locked door,
lungs that beg for air as though the sky
were rationing each breath.

Pain blooms here
beneath the breastbone, in the back,
in places words can not trace,
a fire that rubs ointment can’t quench,
a shadow that painkillers only hush for a while.

I reached out with trembling hands,
hoping for warmth,
but found replies colder than glass,
friends counting old silences
as though friendship were a ledger,
as though emergencies could be measured
against parties and club nights.

I did not choose this.
I did not carve sickle shapes into my blood.
Yet I walk with them daily,
a secret burden pressed into my bones,
and the world dares call me weak.

But weakness is not what studies through fevers,
weakness is not what memorizes the plexus and basal ganglia,
weakness is not what rises from a hospital drip
and still dreams of saving lives.

No!
if anything,
I am strength hidden in fragile glass,
I am flame sheltered from the wind,
I am survival clothed in silence.

Still, I ache.
I ache for home,
for the soft touch of a mother’s hand,
for the kind of care that doesn’t need
an explanation or apology,
for the love that hears a whisper of pain
and moves mountains to soothe it.

I ache for respect, not pity.
I ache to be seen whole
not as broken,
not as tragic,
but as a girl who carries storms in her blood
and still blossoms into light.

So let this poem hold me
when no one else does.
Let it testify:
I am hurting, yes.
I am weary, yes.
I am burning in the ribs and lungs,
but I am not less.

And if death hovers near like an uninvited guest,
let it know this
it can not erase me.
I am Miracle,
and even in pain,
I remain a song,
a story,
a flame that refuses to bow.