I still hear your voice in the background
in birthday videos,
calling me through laughter,
while I ran, unaware
that those moments would last forever.

My mother,
I carry with me the touch of your hands
healing scraped knees,
as if the whole world could fit
in the calm of your care.

There is a sweet longing,
awakened by the smell of coffee,
in the memory of your laughter
filling the house with endless mornings.

Life has shown me
that growing up also means distance,
but your love remains stitched into me,
as if every gesture of mine
were an inheritance of your embrace.

My mother,
the longing I feel
is also gratitude
for sleepless nights,
for simple parties that became grand
because you were there,
looking at me
as if the entire world
was me.

And if today I walk alone,
it is because I first learned to walk
while holding your hand.
Growing up, after all,
is losing a little of the lap
that never ceases to exist.

Sometimes, my mind drifts
without asking for permission.
It hitchhikes on silence
and takes me far from myself.

It flies through winding paths,
where doubts reside,
the pressures I created,
the mistakes I haven’t even made
but already condemn myself for.

I think of failure before the beginning,
of mistakes before the attempt,
and fear...
oh, fear whispers:
"what if nothing makes sense?"

I’ve thought about disappearing.
Not out of malice,
but out of exhaustion.
For thinking that maybe,
in the void, there might be peace.

But then, they appear —
the faces that shaped my heart:
my mother, with teary eyes;
my siblings, silently searching
for a hug that wouldn’t come;
her — the one I dreamed a “we” with;
my friends, trying to understand
what I never said.

Would it hurt?
Would it pass?
Would someone carry me in their heart
as a wound that never heals?

Maybe yes.
Maybe no.
But thinking of them
makes me rethink myself.

Because, in the end,
maybe there’s still time
to overcome the darkness.
To undo others’ expectations
and build my own.

To fail, fall, and get back up,
to breathe deeply
and say:
“I’m trying.”

To love,
to build something of my own,
to care the way I was cared for.

And if I’m to leave,
let it be from fear.
If something must die,
let it be what keeps me from living.

Why it is better to express what we feel,
than to live without recognizing ourselves.

In seeking to understand our difficulties,
we look back and realize:
as children,
we were too young to embrace the world,
and now, as adults,
we see how difficult it is to conquer it.