Sweaty, But Never Done

I rise before the light has gathered strength,
before the kettle hums or the world remembers itself.
My bones ache in familiar ways,
the kind that whisper:
you’re building something that matters.

There is grit in my coffee and purpose in my palms,
splinters in my fingers like punctuation marks—
proof that I’ve held the day by its rough edges
and shaped it with my bare hands.

I move like a storm in steady rhythm,
a woman made of shoulders, fire and sunrise.
Not graceful, but relentless.
Not soft, but full of softness where it counts—
in the way I hold the ones I love,
in the way I pour myself into this life
like it’s the only vessel I’ll ever fill.

Sweat pools beneath my collar,
drips down my back, salt and sun and satisfaction.
And still, I go.
Wrench in hand. Paint in my hair.
Dreams tucked into the corners of every task.
A hundred small victories in the creak of the floor I fixed
and the child I calmed with nothing but my taking action.

I do not wait for permission.
I do not ask the world to see me.
I show up—mud on my boots, sawdust in my lungs,
heart cracked open like a window to the wind.

Some women are lightning.
I am the thunder that follows.
Loud. Certain. Coming anyway.
With love. With fury.
With the knowledge that tired is not the same as done.

Because I raised myself to know
that dreams are built,
not granted.
That sweat is a sacred offering.
And that the only way forward
is through.

So I keep moving—
one breath, one bruise, one bold refusal to stop.
Because the work is mine.
Because the life is mine.
Because I am sweaty.

But never, ever done.