By Denise Mora-Granado

I stand in a quiet room 

Where shadows stretch like whispered  thoughts  

I stand –

I am broken like a mirror at the edges ,

Reflecting at the fragment of myself 

I can no longer recognize myself 

All the weight presses down on me 

A  blanket is made up of silence and doubt 

Suffocating in its silence And softness

The inside of my mind hurts 

With a million voices in my mind 

Each one getting louder than the last

Metaphors  break like glass

Beneath the weight of unseen hands 

Hands that claw at the corner of my heart 

Grasping ,

Pulling ,

Pulling the vault of my darkest fears 

I  reach for the light

But it flickers like a dying star

Cold and distant 

A flame that forgot how to burn 

Hope is a bird 

Its wings clipped by the  storm  

Like every thought that i cannot hold 

But somewhere between the broken lines of my story

a thread of resilience twists

into something I cannot name,

Perhaps it is hope,
or simply the urge to breathe.

I don’t know how long the storm will rage,
how many times I will drown in its echoes,
but still—
I stand.
I breathe.
I listen to the quiet hum
of my own heartbeat
and remember
that even in the deepest silence,
there is music.