After the Storm

You left me in shards, glass skin slicing with every breath, a mosaic of pain scattered on the floor. Your words—knives, your touch—chains. I loved the cage before I realized it had no key. I crawled through nights when your shadow haunted my chest, suffocating, a phantom grip around my neck. I screamed into the void, but even my echoes were afraid of you. And then, there was blood beneath my nails, the taste of iron from biting my tongue too long. I clawed at the walls you built around me, splintered my fingers until freedom tasted like salt and sweat. Healing isn’t gentle. It’s ripping the roots of you from my skin, tearing your lies from my spine, learning to breathe without inhaling the poison you left behind. I stitched myself together, a brutal, messy patchwork of scars. And when I stood, shaking, it wasn’t with fear. It was power— because I survived the storm that was you.