Still Standing

pict from pinterest https://pin.it/4N7Fpu80H

She was born from a house that knew how to love. A mother whose arms were always open. A father whose back never bent without reason.

Home taught her safety. Life did not.

She grew like steel wrapped in silk, softly spoken, painfully strong. Taught how to survive, how not to ask, how to stand without leaning.

And she did. God, she did.

The world hit her anyway.

Not loud enough to leave scars, not cruel enough to justify collapse, just persistent, just enough to turn her mind into an echo chamber.

She stands tall in daylight. Unbreakable. Capable. Responsible for every choice she makes.

But at night, when no one needs her strength, she fractures quietly.

She asks questions with no names: Is this sadness or exhaustion? Is this fear or disappointment? Why is my head so loud when my life looks so calm?

She comes from a happy family. Even when money fell apart, love stayed intact. And that makes her guilt heavier.

Others had broken homes, she had broken thoughts. And somehow that felt less valid, less deserving of pain.

So she swallowed it.

Trust did not leave her, it bled out slowly. Every good thing arrived wearing the shadow of its ending.

She learned to meet joy with crossed arms. To judge beginnings by their most likely collapse.

Never the start. Always the ending.

When someone reaches for her, she doesn’t feel chosen, she feels examined. She dissects every word, every pause, every possibility of abandonment.

Not because she thinks too highly of herself, but because deep down, she believes she is too much and somehow never enough.

She tells herself she doesn’t deserve anyone. That distance is wisdom. That solitude is control.

But really, it’s fear wearing discipline’s face.

She is not weak. She is exhausted from being strong without rest. She is not broken. She is overloaded with feelings she was never taught how to place down.

And still, somewhere beneath the noise, beneath the overthinking and self-blame, there is a quiet pulse.

Not hope. Not yet.

Just a breath that says: I am still here. Even like this.

_shan