#survivingstorms
I was built from silence
and the spaces between words,
from nights where shadows spoke louder
than any hand could comfort.
I learned to move quietly,
to fold my voice into the corners,
to carry the storms
that weren’t mine to hold.
I collected shards of broken moments,
pain wrapped in whispers,
grief hidden in the edges of a smile.
I thought it made me small,
but the universe was shaping me
like fire shapes iron.
Every tear, every fear, every hidden hurt
was part of a balance I could not see:
the dark teaching patience,
the heavy teaching strength,
the silence teaching the power of a voice
that one day would roar.
I am the sum of what tried to break me,
the light I discovered in the cracks,
the fires I learned to protect
even when the world demanded stillness.
I carry my past without shame,
because each scar is a compass
that guided me here—
to a self that survives,
a self that feels,
a self that rises.
The universe whispered its lesson:
darkness and light, chaos and calm,
pain and joy—
all must exist
to create a soul that knows its own strength.
I am that balance now.
I am Phoenix.
I am rising.
Mar 9
Mar 9, 2026 at 3:25 PM UTC
Sometimes the past sits on my shoulders,
heavy as a winter sky,
and I feel the cold
of every night I thought I was alone.
I learned to keep small fires inside me,
to light them quietly,
so they wouldn’t startle anyone else.
A laugh, a memory, a rhythm—
tiny sparks in a world
that wanted me to be still.
I carry them still,
these little fires,
proof that I survived,
proof that even when the storm rages,
a small flame can guide the way home.
Mar 9
Mar 9, 2026 at 3:24 PM UTC
I grew up collecting shards
of words and gestures
that cut me more than they healed.
I carried them like treasure,
thinking sharp edges meant I was stronger.
I learned to hide the bleeding
under layers of quiet,
under smiles I didn’t feel.
But the night holds other lessons—
even broken glass reflects stars.
Even pain can shine
when it’s seen in the right light.
And I remember now:
the universe didn’t forget me,
even when I thought I was lost.
Mar 9
Mar 9, 2026 at 3:22 PM UTC
There’s a space I remember,
between what I saw and what I was told.
A room with no doors,
only windows I couldn’t open.
I learned to speak in half-truths,
to nod when I didn’t understand,
to carry the weight of voices
that weren’t mine.
Time passed like dust in sunlight—
soft, blinding, impossible to hold.
And yet I moved through it,
learning that even when the air is heavy,
a breath is still a victory.
Somewhere in that room,
I left pieces of myself,
tiny fragments of courage
waiting to be found again.
Mar 9
Mar 9, 2026 at 3:21 PM UTC
We only spoke through voices,
distance humming through the line,
but sometimes you don’t need to see someone
to recognise a familiar silence.
I could hear it in the pauses,
in the careful way the words were chosen,
like every sentence had already been checked
before it was allowed to breathe.
Children learn that skill early
in houses where storms live.
Which truths are safe to say.
Which ones must stay buried
somewhere behind the ribs.
I know that language.
I was once a child
who heard half the story
and carried twice the weight.
The quiet conversations behind doors,
the names whispered with tension,
the strange feeling of understanding
things no one ever explained.
And somehow the pieces children are given
are never the ones that make sense.
Sometimes the story changes
depending on who is telling it.
Sometimes the truth gets bent
so the people holding it
don’t have to look too closely at themselves.
Children don’t question that.
They just hold the pieces they’re given
and try to make a world out of them.
But the heart notices things
long before the mind understands them.
That quiet confusion.
That heavy feeling
that something doesn’t quite fit.
I remember carrying that too.
What I know now
that I didn’t know then
is something simple but powerful—
Children are not responsible
for the storms around them.
They are only the ones
learning how to stand
while the thunder rolls overhead.
And sometimes, years later,
when the world grows quieter,
the truth slowly finds its way
through the cracks of old stories.
When it does,
it changes everything.
But it also reveals something else—
The child who survived it
was always stronger
than they were ever told.
Mar 9
Mar 9, 2026 at 3:13 PM UTC