I Feel It in My Bones

It begins before the light—
a whisper behind my eyes,
a flame beneath my skin.
Not a spark,
not a flicker,
but a furnace that wakes before I do.

Every morning,
my body remembers
what I would rather forget—
that I am the enemy
of myself.

It is not the pain
that undoes me.
It is the permanence.
The knowing
that there will be no hour today,
no minute,
no breath
that is free of it.

From toes to jaw,
from spine to shoulder blades,
my own cells misread me,
misfire,
mistake healing for threat
and mount their war.

And still—
I rise.

I laugh with my teeth gritted.
I dress the wound
in denim and mascara.
I let people call me strong
because that’s easier
than explaining
what it means
to live as your own battlefield.

Since nineteen—
barely formed,
barely grown—
I have felt
ancient.
Cracked porcelain
in a world of newness.
The aching echo
of a body
that has never quite
belonged to me.

I was always called
wise beyond my years.
Old soul.
Grounded.
Solid.
As if the universe
was dropping breadcrumbs
for a diagnosis
waiting in the wings.

And so I aged
before I bloomed.
I knew fatigue
like a lullaby.
I learned to smile
while on fire.

This disease—
this betrayal—
feels like proof.
Like the final thesis
in a lifelong study
of self-loathing.
As though my body
was listening
when I cursed it,
scolded it,
starved it,
silenced it.

As if it took me
at my word.

As if the burning
is penance.

But let me be clear:
this is not a cry
for sympathy.
This is not
a wound I hold out
for measuring.

This is simply
the truth,
as close as I will come
to speaking it aloud.

Because worse things
have happened
to better people.
And I will not
grieve myself
for something
so small
in the vast cathedral
of all I still have
to be grateful for.

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