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The Body Keeps Score

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HomePoetryThe Body Keeps Score

There is a war

no one else can hear.

 

It does not sound like bombs

or sirens—

it sounds like overthinking at 2 a.m.,

like a heartbeat that won’t slow down,

like silence stretching too tight across my ribs.

 

My mind is a general—

cold, strategic, disciplined.

It counts the ways I could lose.

It measures risk in teaspoons.

It sharpens logic into blades

and calls it protection.

 

My heart is reckless.

It bleeds without asking permission.

It believes in miracles

after autopsies.

It runs toward fire

because it remembers warmth.

 

And my body—

my body is the ground they trample.

 

Jaw clenched from unsaid things.

Shoulders armored in tension.

Stomach twisted into barbed wire.

Sleep rationed like hope.

 

I carry bruises

no one sees—

fingerprints of choices,

of love that didn’t choose me back,

of strength forced into softness.

 

Some days I want surrender.

White flag raised from my throat.

Some days I want silence

so deep

even memory can’t find me.

 

But here’s the truth:

 

The battlefield is still breathing.

Still standing.

Still refusing to collapse

under friendly fire.

 

The war rages—

mind against heart,

logic against longing—

 

and I remain.

 

Not unscarred.

Not unbroken.

But alive in the aftermath,

learning that maybe

the victory

is not choosing a side—

 

but choosing myself.

 

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    7 COMMENTS

    1. With poetic flair, you write words I can relate to. I’m reminded of a dark period I went through long ago. (Divorce and subsequent quest to find love again) I believe storms can’t linger forever, and are eventually pushed aside by the sun and blue skies.

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