I don’t remember the last time I felt whole just fragments of a person scattered across sleepless nights and apologies I never said out loud. My mind is a warzone no one else can hear gunfire thoughts, memories exploding without warning, echoes of everything I wish I could erase but somehow never forget. I tried to explain it once… how drowning feels when you’re breathing, how silence can scream louder than pain, but they looked at me like I was speaking in ghosts and one by one, they turned their backs like I was something too heavy to carry. Maybe I was. Now I sit here with the weight of my past pressed against my chest, every mistake replaying like it’s the only story I deserve to remember. I wear guilt like a second skin tight, suffocating, impossible to peel away. And forgiveness? That word feels foreign in my mouth, like I’m not allowed to taste it. Like redemption was meant for someone who didn’t break things the way I did. I look in the mirror and see every version of me I hate every wrong turn, every burned bridge, every moment I should’ve been better but wasn’t. And still… somewhere beneath all this ruin, there’s a whisper. Soft. Stubborn. Still alive. It reminds me that I’m not the only one fighting battles behind closed eyes, that there are others sitting in the same darkness trying to convince themselves to stay one more night. So I stay. Even when it hurts. Even when I don’t believe I deserve to. Even when the people I love feel like strangers now. Because maybe broken doesn’t mean finished. Maybe shattered pieces can still catch light. And maybe just maybe I’m not as alone as my mind wants me to believe.