I Rise

There were days
I carried my name like a stone,
too heavy to lift.

Yet even then,
something in me kept breathing,
kept reaching
for one small reason to remain.

And so I found it:

Strength is not the absence of pain.
It is the hand that trembles
and still opens.

It is the heart that cracks
and yet keeps beating
for what was loved.

I am not who I was before the loss.

I am more tender now,
more honest,
more awake to the quiet grace
of another morning.

What was taken cannot be returned.
But from the emptiness,
I have grown roots.
And from those roots,
I rise.