Today, monday.
Still carrying the weight of Friday.
Your absence, an unbearable abundance of air,
your last breath, the weight of your death.

Friday morning, just past seven-thirty,
you left this earth, hoping for a better place.
You will be remembered, by all of us,
here in the clinic, gathered, lighting a candle.

May you see its glow from above,
burning softly, just for you.

Today, the world feels light.
The sun paints freckles on my skin,
soft warmth settling on my cheeks.

It’s my birthday,
and for once, I don’t need all the answers.
I laugh, I exist, I feel surrounded, seen, alive.

The colors are only beginning to rise,
and I’m in no rush to reach the other side.

They tell me a smile would suit me better.
That my words are too heavy,
that my thoughts should bloom,
not wither.

"Write something bright," they say.
"Something soft, something warm,
something easy to swallow."

But my hands do not know
how to hold happiness.
It slips through my fingers
before I can shape it into words.

So I write what lingers.
What stays.
What refuses to be silenced.

And if that makes them uncomfortable,
then they were never listening at all.

This day is okay.

I gather what I can,
okay is enough for me right now.

I am grateful for the ones around me,
the love I have chosen - the family I have found.
A circle of strength, support, and love - my new kin.
And yet, I wonder how my blood is holding on.

Is my mother okay?
If my father still carries his loneliness like a second skin, does he feel the distance too?
Do they think of me as I think of them?

Guilt burrows deep in my chest, as if finding a new family means forsaking the old.
And still, anger warms itself in my heart, a quiet flame burning for my mother, my father.

Angry at what could have been, the dreams that slipped away, the chances never taken.
And yet, here I stand - a daughter, a sister, a partner.
I carry a hidden story beneath my skin,
a story that has shaped me into who I am -

and I am good.

I do not expect others to understand the depths of my feelings when I say I'm unhappy, sadness isn't just a weight I bear. It's not just a moment of feeling low, but rather a deep pit from which I cannot climb out. It’s not the kind of slump that comes after a tough week, it’s an endless void where tears flow until there are no more to shed. I am not sad - no longer. Now, tears have left me, and in their place is an emptiness that feels like failure, as though I don’t belong in this world. There seems to be too little space for me here, sometimes it feels like my presence could vanish without anyone noticing. Often, I wake up hoping to find myself freed from this dream - a short journey where none of this is real. Yet perhaps hope should stay by my side, it gives me purpose in the midst of despair - what else would hold me steady through life? Friends are absent from my days, and my bond with my mother has ended, i feel like a sister who has stumbled and hurt many along the way. The pain I've caused lingers, a cycle passed down from mother to daughter. This is my burden. The one reason for my existence tied with suffering - strangely beautiful yet painfully so.