She looked at herself in the mirror, and started to see the shards of her former self. Not all at once. Not cleanly. More like fragments surfacing through fog, through water, through time that refuses to stay still long enough to be trusted. Versions of her she once moved through the world as. Versions that once felt solid, certain, complete in their certainty. Now they only appear in pieces. She was stuck between two worlds. One of who she used to be prior to the battle. One where she is putting the pieces together. Still fading in and out, she holds strong. There are days when the mirror feels like recognition. Other days it feels like confrontation. Like standing in front of someone who knows everything she has tried not to name. The reflection does not always behave like a reflection. Sometimes it lingers too long. Sometimes it feels like it is remembering her before she can. Memory does that now. It does not stay in place. She steadied her breath, watching the woman in the mirror flicker like a candle caught in a draft. Some days she felt solid, anchored. Other days she was smoke—memories, instincts, and echoes of who she used to be. The battle had carved something out of her, but it also left space for something new to grow. Something that did not arrive loudly. It arrived as silence. As hesitation. As a different way of noticing. What the battle took was not always visible. It did not always leave marks others could see. It changed how she enters a room, how she leaves one, how she understands safety in its absence. It changed how quickly she trusts stillness. It changed what her body remembers before her mind does. And still, she keeps going. There are moments when forgetting feels like distance, like standing slightly outside of herself. Not gone. Not absent. Just not fully inside the moment. She used to read this as failure. Now she understands it differently. Forgetting is not emptiness. It is protection. It is the mind setting something down because it could not be carried at the time.

There are things in life you never expect. You can't say *Never*, because that's when *Never* sneaks up on you — lurking in a dark corner, waiting to pounce like a lion. It attacks and attaches like a leech; you think you're done with the *Never*, but every time you say *Never*, it appears again and again, leaving you breathless, wounded, staggering, unbalanced. You retreat to lick your wounds. Slowly, you start to see sunshine in the rain. The clouds clear, the storm subsides — calm waters, comforting ambiance, Zen. Yet just as you whisper *Never again*, it whips you around, staggering you, flipping you inside out. You know that, unfortunately, you have all the resources to manage this. This is your biggest *Never* yet — the one you said you'd never face. You keep stacking the *Nevers* until they become *Always*. *Everything Always happens to me.* Your tenacity exists for this very purpose. Without it, you cease to exist. The *Nevers* stack into *Always*, forcing you to assess where your voice is directed — and that is **up**. Even if silent, it is still there. We find our voice in the silence. Because if we don't, we get passed over a bump in the road, swept under the rug.

I am here because, I hold a lot of grief and find the easiest way is too write.

I’ll shave my head, I’ve not much hair, I’ll shave my head because I care. I’ll shave my head to be like you, I’ll shave my head because you would too. It’s only hair , It doesn’t matter, There’s so much more to you that flatters - When I look at you - I don’t see hair, It’s your soul that will always catch my stare - You’re as beautiful now - as the day that we met. I love you more than then , so do not fret, So I’ll shave my head with a smile on my face, And I’ll shave my head with abandoned grace, All that matters is that we’re ok, So save your blushes for another day.

"Die Before You Live" I was born with the war inside me. Didn’t need to learn how to sin— it came coded in my blood, stitched in my DNA like a curse I never asked for. Flawed from the gate. Crooked from the crib. Craving poison like it was peace. I didn’t become broken. I was broken. From the jump. From the womb. From the moment I opened my eyes and breathed in a world just as shattered as me. And I ran— God knows, I ran. Chased highs, chased money, chased lies that dressed up like love. Burned bridges, let people drown trying to keep my own head above water. I thought survival was victory. But really, I was just dying slow. Pain was my gospel. And I worshipped at the altar of escape. But escape is a liar. And every time I thought I found peace, it slipped through my fingers like smoke. And then came the death. Not of the body— but of everything I thought I was. The ego. The pride. The man I built in the image of sin. That man had to die so something holy could rise from the ruin. See, Jesus didn’t say, “Patch it up.” He said, “Pick up your cross.” “Crucify the flesh.” “Die before you live.” And I didn’t get it— not until the pain got so loud it sounded like truth. I thought it was killing me. But it was refining me. All that fire, all that suffering— it was breaking chains I didn’t even know I was dragging. My mind had to be reborn. Not just cleaned. Not just rinsed. Transformed. I had to bury that old mindset in a grave I dug with my own hands. Only then did I start breathing for real. Only then did I feel the weight lift and the light break through the cracks. Now I know: Redemption doesn’t come in comfort. It comes when you’re flat on your back with nothing left but truth. When grace finds you in the ashes of who you used to be and says, “Now—let’s build something better.” So here I am. Not perfect. Not fixed. But new. Made from scars. Held together by mercy. Driven by purpose. And if my pain can help one soul turn back before it’s too late— then let it bleed.