Still Here:
I don’t owe anyone an explanation
Not for my fake smile, not for my silence, not for the nights I can’t find sleep
People look at me and think they know
But they don’t feel the noise in here
The looping thoughts, the heaviness that drags me under
The ache I’ve carried longer than I can remember
Being alive hurts
It’s not about surviving, it’s about feeling everything too much
The grief that clings, the joy that slips away too fast
Sometimes I wonder if I’m stitched together by all the things I’ve lost
If that’s all healing really is
Learning to walk with holes where pieces used to be
I get tired of pretending
Tired of acting like I’m not cracked, like I’ve figured it out
Because I haven’t
Some days just getting out of bed feels like a war no one sees
And I want to scream that existing shouldn’t be this hard
But then the quiet comes and I remember if it hurts this much, it means I’m still here
It means I still care
Healing isn’t clean
It’s bleeding into my own hands and still choosing to keep going
It’s sitting in the dark and waiting for a reason
And maybe that reason is that the sun always comes up
Whether I want it to or not
I don’t need anyone to name me
I don’t need them to understand
This is my life, messy, scarred, and unfinished
But it’s mine
And if that’s what it means to be alive
Then I will take it and embrace it
Even with the grief
Even with the ache
Even with all of it
-Jacob Malone
May 12
May 12, 2026 at 12:12 AM UTC
Still Here:
I don’t owe anyone an explanation
Not for my fake smile, not for my silence, not for the nights I can’t find sleep
People look at me and think they know
But they don’t feel the noise in here
The looping thoughts, the heaviness that drags me under
The ache I’ve carried longer than I can remember
Being alive hurts
It’s not about surviving, it’s about feeling everything too much
The grief that clings, the joy that slips away too fast
Sometimes I wonder if I’m stitched together by all the things I’ve lost
If that’s all healing really is
Learning to walk with holes where pieces used to be
I get tired of pretending
Tired of acting like I’m not cracked, like I’ve figured it out
Because I haven’t
Some days just getting out of bed feels like a war no one sees
And I want to scream that existing shouldn’t be this hard
But then the quiet comes and I remember if it hurts this much, it means I’m still here
It means I still care
Healing isn’t clean
It’s bleeding into my own hands and still choosing to keep going
It’s sitting in the dark and waiting for a reason
And maybe that reason is that the sun always comes up
Whether I want it to or not
I don’t need anyone to name me
I don’t need them to understand
This is my life, messy, scarred, and unfinished
But it’s mine
And if that’s what it means to be alive
Then I will take it and embrace it
Even with the grief
Even with the ache
Even with all of it
-Jacob Malone
“Pain is often a language we don’t understand yet.”
— Jacob Malone
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