There was a time
I trusted my body,
like a quiet friend
who never needed words.
But something shifted
in the marrow of mornings,
in the hush between breaths,
in the way light stopped feeling warm.
First, it was whispers
small aches I named “nothing,”
tiny rebellions beneath the skin
I thought would pass if I ignored them.
But nothing became something,
and something grew feets.
A storm settled in my head,
heavy, blooming in silence
a pressure that felt like
thoughts were being crushed
before they could become dreams.
Doctors spoke in careful tones,
soft words wrapped in sharp meanings.
I learned new languages
of scans, of shadows,
of things growing where they shouldn’t.
And I thought:
Surely this is the worst of it.
But the body is a storyteller
that doesn’t believe in endings
only chapters that bleed into one another.
Sugar turned traitor in my veins,
sweetness becoming something bitter,
a quiet imbalance
that asked for discipline
when all I had was exhaustion.
My liver grew tired too
a silent worker
now faltering under invisible weight.
Another piece of me
slipping out of rhythm.
And then even the air
began to argue with me
allergies clawing at my breath,
as if the world itself
was unsure it wanted me here.
I became a map of conditions,
a list of “be carefuls,”
a fragile system
of ifs and maybes.
And still
I wanted to heal.
God, how I wanted to heal.
I tried everything
that hope could afford
medicine, patience,
bargains whispered at night
to ceilings that never answered.
“Just let this ease,” I’d say.
“Just give me one quiet day.”
But pain is persistent.
It lingers like an echo
that refuses to fade,
like a shadow
that learns your shape too well.
Some days I fought it.
Some days I surrendered.
Most days, I simply endured
which is its own kind of battle.
And the hardest part?
It wasn’t just the hurting.
It was the not healing.
The waiting for relief
that never quite arrived.
The almost-better days
that slipped through my fingers
like water I couldn’t hold.
I searched for peace
in places that promised silence,
but even there
my mind kept speaking
asking questions
my body couldn’t answer.
“Why me?”
“When will it stop?”
“Will I ever feel whole again?”
No one prepares you
for a life that bends this way
where survival feels like work,
and rest feels borrowed.
. ~M3LLøW.
M