How do I trust myself again… when survival meant shutting parts of me down? When silence was safety, numbness was wisdom, and the parts of me that felt were liabilities I couldn’t afford. What do you do… when your body adapted to war, but your soul is begging for peace? I don’t remember when I stopped trusting myself. Only that one day, silence felt safer than speaking. Stillness felt smarter than wanting. And disappearing…well, that felt like strategy, not surrender. See, when survival becomes the goal, your body learns to cut costs. Hope? Too expensive. Desire? Dangerous. Emotion? A luxury for the safe. So I split. I severed. I simplified. I became efficient. Sharp. Unreachable. And it worked. I stayed alive. But now? Now I’m trying to live. And the things I once buried are knocking. Not like ghosts More like children I left behind in the storm. Still waiting for me to come back. Still believing I will. Here’s the hard part: They don’t want an apology. They want reintegration. They want me to feel again. Risk again. Trust again. But how do I trust the very instincts I once had to betray in order to survive? And how do I bring those parts of me to a God I was afraid of trusting too? Because sometimes I thought Jesus only loved the version of me that looked holy, not the one that hid in the corner just trying to breathe. But I’m learning something new. Maybe He didn’t just wait for me at the finish line. Maybe He walked with me through the splitting. Sat with me in the silence. Whispered to the parts I abandoned, “You’re still Mine.” Maybe the answer isn’t to go back to the self I was. Maybe it’s to honor the one who adapted, thank the one who endured, and invite Jesus to sit with the one who’s still whispering beneath the armor. I don’t have it figured out. But I think trust begins in the quiet. When I stop asking myself to be perfect and start asking if I’m willing to be present. And maybe that’s enough, for now. Maybe that’s where He begins too.

I am a prison without locks, Searching indefinitely for that which you are yet to know you need. The past doesn’t help you, And the future won’t hold you, There is no combination, Or cute illustration, Words barely justify my existence, Yet you still yearn for me, For I thrive in your name, I am elusive, From the start to the end, Too much or too little too late, You carve my reputation into morsels of greed, But to know me you must allow me to be freed, I am exactly that which you need me to be, Whilst destroying your world with the thought of my presence.

Dear Ghost in the Room You don’t announce yourself. You never did. You live in the corners in the pause before I sit down, in the chair I don’t choose, in the way my body still orients around something that isn’t there anymore. You aren’t memory exactly. You’re residue. The afterimage of what once had power over me. The echo that stays even after the sound is gone. I used to think you meant something was wrong that your presence was a sign I hadn’t healed enough, hadn’t prayed hard enough, hadn’t let go correctly. But I’m learning something quieter. You linger because you mattered. Because something real passed through here and left a shape. That doesn’t mean you still get to rule the room. There was a time when you decided everything where I stood, what I said, how small I made myself to keep the peace. Back then, I mistook endurance for obedience. Silence for wisdom. Disappearing for faith. You benefited from that confusion. But I’m not gone anymore. I sit where I want now. I speak at my own pace. I leave lights on. I open windows. And when you show up, I don’t flinch. I don’t argue either. I acknowledge you then return my attention to the weight of my body in the chair, to breath moving in and out, to the fact that I am still here. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”- (Psalm 23:4) It doesn’t say the shadow disappears. Only that it no longer gets the final word. So yes you still linger. But so do I. And this room is learning the difference.

Cast me down a junkie, Place the monkey on my back, Make sure you cut it open first and stuff it full of crack, Will that keep you gratified, Satisfied for now, Let you feel your mocking privilege whilst ignorant to how. It’s an overrated overstated masturbated farce, Letting bloodhounds Shepard sheep, Whilst they smoke their fat cigars. Take another vow of silence, Enjoy your two weeks in the sun, Whilst I melt their fear of what we are, To make bullets for my gun.

I didn’t rise with a roar this morning. I rose in a whisper. Not sure why I woke up before the sun. It wasn’t rest. It was something else, some quiet stirring under the weight. The house was dark, the kind of dark that usually presses against my ribs. Same walls, same stillness, same memories pacing the edges. But today… it all felt a shade lighter. Not much. Just enough for me to notice. I went to make coffee again. Black. Strong. Another ritual that usually sits untouched on the counter. But this time I drank half of it before it went cold... Half a cup... Doesn’t sound like much, but it felt like a statement. A small, stubborn way of saying, “I’m still here.” I stepped outside barefoot. Concrete chilled my feet. Air met my face with a gentleness I wasn’t expecting. The sky was just beginning to open, a thin line of gold cutting through night’s leftovers. And for the first time in a long time, my breath didn’t feel like a fight. I stood there, not knowing what to call this feeling. It wasn’t joy. Or healing. Or any of the words people like to throw at men like me. It was more like… a door cracking open. Just enough light to see that the room I’ve been stuck in isn’t the whole house. I felt Him again too. Not in a loud, dramatic way. Not fixing anything. Just there. Close enough to notice. Close enough to steady me without saying a word. Psalm 34:18 drifted through my mind, uninvited but welcomed... “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.” I’m not “saved,” not in the storybook sense. I’m not fixed. But today, I felt the nearness. And sometimes that’s the first step a man gets. Half a cup of coffee. A breath that doesn’t hurt. Cold concrete under bare feet. Little things. Quiet things. But they’re mine. If you asked me what my rising looks like right now, I’d have to answer with a single word. Beginning.