Life Raft

Today is a day

like so many before

I wake up with breath in my chest

and some kind of peace

stitched into my ribcage.

The kind you don’t notice

until it replaces chaos.

I’m grateful.

For the dirt under my nails

from rebuilding myself

again

and again.

For the calm that comes

from doing the next right thing

on days I’d rather vanish.

But grief still knocks.

Not like a storm anymore

more like a soft tap at the side door

while I’m cooking dinner

for one.

I don’t want to go back to who I was.

God, no.

But I’d be lying

if I said I didn’t sometimes wish

I could’ve brought him with me.

Wish I could’ve grown

without burning it all down.

But I didn’t.

I jumped.

No parachute.

No second guess.

Just splinters and sirens and

the slow realization

that I was the wreckage.

And now

I can’t ask to be taken back.

I don’t deserve that.

I don’t expect it.

What I can do

what I am doing

is building a raft.

A boat.

A damn life support system

out of scrap wood and sober days.

Because this version of me

the one with shaking hands and

too many regrets

he deserves to live.

To get old.

To make it.

So I let go of the snapshots.

The what if we’d lasted

and who I thought I’d grow old with.

I tuck them away

somewhere soft

but not sacred.

Because the people I hurt

don’t owe me a thing.

And love doesn’t erase the hurt

it can only honor it.

With space.

With silence.

With acceptance

that arrives

some days

only after a breakdown

and some coffee.

I can’t go back.

I’m not sure I would, even if I could.

But I won’t forget, either.

Because that boy

the one who lost everything

was me.

And that life,

for all its mess,

had love in it.

Real love.

And I’ll carry the good

like a stone in my pocket

heavy, grounding,

and always there

when I need to remember

who I was,

who I lost,

and who I get to become.