I Survived Myself

Nobody talks about

the version of you

that almost didn’t make it.

Not the dramatic kind—

not the one that leaves

a clean story behind.

I’m talking about

the quiet destruction.

The nights

you sat in your own head

too long.

The mornings

you woke up tired

of being you.

The way you kept going

not because you were strong—

but because stopping

would’ve meant facing it

all at once.

I have been

my own worst place.

My own war zone.

My own reason

for almost giving up.

And still—

I stayed.

Not gracefully.

Not beautifully.

Not in a way

anyone would applaud.

I stayed

out of stubbornness.

Out of spite.

Out of something in me

that refused

to disappear

just because it hurt.

People think survival

looks like progress.

Like healing.

Like light.

Sometimes it looks like

getting out of bed

when nothing in you

wants to exist in the day.

Sometimes it looks like

breathing

through something

you don’t even have words for.

Sometimes it looks like

not ending it

when you could have.

So no—

I’m not proud

in the way they expect.

I’m not fixed.

I’m not finished.

But I am still here.

And if that’s all

I’ve done—

then that’s everything.

Because I didn’t just survive

what happened to me.

I survived

what it did

to me.