The Quiet After - by Nimmat

I don’t remember when I started fading.It wasn’t loud.I couldn’t even point to a moment and say,“this is where I broke.”It was quieter than that.A slow unravelling.A softness turning into something heavy.A version of me slipping awaywhile I was still living inside her.Now when I close my eyes,everything feels heavier.Like my chest is holding somethingtoo big to name,too deep to understand.And the tearsthey don’t wait anymore.They come without warning,like my heart is trying to speakin a language I don’t know how to translate.And there’s this questionthat keeps circling my mindwhat happened?I ask it like there’s an answer.Like if I search hard enough,I’ll find the exact momenteverything changed.But there’s nothing.Just a quiet beforeand this… after.I used to be someone else.Someone who laughed without thinking.Someone who didn’t feel likeevery smile had to be rehearsed.Someone who didn’t lie awake at nighttrying to understandwhy existing suddenly feels like work.Now I feel like a strangerin my own life.I know people,but I don’t feel known.I’m surrounded,but somehow still alone.And no matter what I do,there’s this voicesoft, persistent, crueltelling meI am not enough.Not enough to be chosen.Not enough to be understood.Not enough to be stayed for.So I learned how to shrink.How to speak less,feel less,need less.How to carry everything quietlyso no one would noticehow much I’m actually struggling.Because saying “I’m fine”is easier than explaininga pain I don’t even understand.But the nights…the nights are honest.That’s when everything I hidecomes back to find me.That’s when I feel it the mostthe weight,the emptiness,the exhaustion of trying to hold myself together.And in those quiet moments,when I feel like I’m slippingin ways I can’t controlI whisper,Ya Allah, hold me…because I don’t trust my strength anymore.Ya Allah, give me strength…because pretending I’m okayis wearing me down.Ya Allah, make it go away…because I am so tiredof carrying somethingI don’t even understand.I don’t even ask to be happy anymore.I just want peace.Just a momentwhere my chest feels light again.Because right nowI am here.I am breathing.I am trying.But I miss myself.And I don’t knowif she’s gone forever,or just buriedunder all of this weightwaiting for meto find my way back.

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