After the Unnaming

The body keeps receipts no court will read. A timestamp in the shoulder, in the breath that catches on stairs three years later. They tell you healing is a straight road. It's not. It's a room you learn to re-enter without asking permission from the dark. No, you did not owe them stillness. No, your "freeze" was not consent. The body is wiser than myth: it chose to keep you alive. That is not cowardice. That is architecture. I will not call you "broken" because broken implies you were once a single piece. You were always a galaxy. They trespassed one star. The rest of you kept burning. So when joy returns — and it will, in small, defiant animals — a laugh that surprises your mouth, a morning you don’t count the exits — know this: You were not ruined. You were interrupted. And interruptions end.