Come With Me, I Know Where You've Been

Today, I’m not asking you to pretend. I'm not asking you to fix it, heal it, reframe it, or even understand it. I'm just asking you to come with me, to the place you’ve already been a thousand times.

That hollow place. That sick, twisting ache behind your ribs. The one you think no one else could ever understand. The one you stopped talking about because even the words felt too small.

I know it. I’ve been there too. Not once. Not twice. But enough times to know the ground by heart.

You don't have to explain it. The broken hopes. The dreams that used to burn bright until they just... didn’t anymore. The love you lost. The trust that shattered in your hands. The way the silence after betrayal feels louder than any scream.

I know how heavy it gets. How you wake up some mornings and your first thought isn't hope, it's survival. How the people around you laugh, plan, dream, and you sit there wondering, "How are they not bleeding out too?"

You think you’ve failed because you still feel it. You haven’t. Feeling it means you’re still alive.

You don’t have to carry it alone anymore. Not today.

Come back with me, not to fix it, but to lay it bare. To finally stop pretending you’re fine. To say, "Yeah, it fucking hurt. And yeah, it still does."

Let me sit with you in the wreckage. Not to clean it up. Just to remind you: you lived through it. You're still breathing.

You think you’re weak because you’re tired? You're tired because you fought battles no one saw.

You think you’re broken because you can’t move on? You’re not broken. You’re stitched together with the kind of strength most people will never understand.

And peace? Peace isn’t something you stumble into after the pain is over. Peace is something you build right there, in the middle of the war. Peace is a shaky hand reaching for sunlight when everything inside you wants to stay in the dark. It’s the tiniest part of you whispering, "Maybe, there's still something worth holding onto."

I’m not here to sell you hope wrapped up in pretty words. I’m here to tell you the truth:

You will lose. You will fall. You will break again.

But also, you will rise. You will remember. You will become something so powerful, even the parts of you that once begged to disappear will stand in awe.

You are not behind. You are not too late. You are not too broken to matter.

You are exactly where you need to be: standing in the rubble, heart still beating, hands still reaching, spirit still flickering like a stubborn goddamn flame.

And if all you can do today is breathe, breathe.

I see you. I honor every battle you’ve fought alone. And when you look up at the sky and the wind brushes your face, that’s me, reminding you:

You are not alone. You never were.