The Weight I Cannot Name

There is a storm that no one sees,

A quiet war inside of me.

No thunder shakes the evening sky,

Yet every day I wonder why.

Why does my heart feel made of stone?

Why do I still feel so alone?

How can a room be full of light,

Yet leave my soul consumed by night?

I wear a smile stitched into place,

A practiced mask upon my face.

It tells the world that I’m okay,

While everything inside decays.

I measure every word I speak,

Convinced that I am far too weak.

I count the flaws,

ignore the good,

And never see what others would.

I look into the mirror’s stare,

And only find despairing air.

A stranger looks right back at me

Someone I never hoped to be.

My mind becomes an endless judge,

That never offers room to budge.

It whispers softly,

then it screams,

Until it drowns my brightest dreams.

“You’re not enough.”

The words repeat

Like broken records in defeat.

They echo through my weary head,

Long after every hope has fled.

Not pretty enough.

Not strong enough.

Not brave enough.

Not kind enough.

Not worthy of the love I crave.

No matter what I try to prove,

I cannot earn my own approval.

The mountain grows with every climb,

Moving farther every time.

Life feels heavy in my hands,

Like holding water made of sand.

The harder that I grip each day,

The more it seems to slip away.

I’m tired beyond what sleep can cure,

A different ache, deep and obscure.

The kind that settles in your chest

And steals away your peaceful rest.

Sometimes I wonder who I’d be

Without this endless enemy.

Would laughter come without restraint?

Would hope return instead of faint?

Would I believe that I belong?

Would silence stop becoming song?

Would I look up instead of down,

And finally set this burden down?

Still…

Somewhere beneath the grief I keep,

Past nights I’ve spent awake,

unable to sleep,

There lives a spark too small to see

A fragile part that’s still…

me.

She hasn’t vanished.

She still remains.

Hidden beneath relentless rains.

Waiting, though she barely knows,

For sunlight after endless snows.

Perhaps tomorrow won’t erase

The sorrow written on my face.

Perhaps the darkness lingers still,

Against my heart,

against my will.

But maybe healing isn’t found

In giant leaps or solid ground.

Maybe it’s whispered, almost small

“You made it through today.”

And maybe that’s enough at all.