I am not my pain (Marcella Boccia)

I am not my pain,though it has worn me like a second skin,etched in the deep lines of my face,woven through the silence between my breaths.It has touched my bones,taught my heart to breakwith the precision of a forgotten lover's kiss,but I am not its prisoner.I am not the scarsthat mark my flesh like a mapof every war I’ve fought within—each one a victory,each one a woundthat whispers its story in the dark,but they do not define me.I am more than what was takenor what was lost.I am the wind that risesand tears through the dust of the past,carrying with it the scent of a worldnot yet ruined,not yet broken.I am the voice that risesfrom the ashes of my own despair,shaking the earth beneath my feetwith the roar of somethingthat will not be silenced.I am not the tears that falllike fragile promises forgotten in the rain,nor the hollow nights when the moon is just a ghost,its light a whisper of what could have been.I am not the darkness,though I have danced in its embrace,nor the shadows that follow melike unwanted memories.I am the pulse of lifethat refuses to die,the flicker of lightthat refuses to dim.I am the silence that speaks louder than words,the breath that fills the spaces between the beats of a broken heart.I am not my pain,though it has walked beside melike an old friend.I am the one who rises—the one who survives.