I want to pour it out like rain on rooftops,
Let the thunder of my sorrow be heard
Cry rivers on a shoulder that won’t judge the storm.
But I bury it.
Like a secret I swore to never tell myself.

I want to leave it behind,
Like ashes scattered by the wind
But this pain boomerangs back,
Sharp and sudden,
Like a ghost that refuses to stay dead.

They told me to be a man.
Taught me silence is strength,
That tears are rust on armor.
But this isn’t a battle I can win by bleeding inward.

So help me
Not to be harder,
But to be whole.
Not to erase the past,
But to carry it like a scar that speaks,
Not screams