To the one who’s tired of holding it all together

You don’t have to.

Not today. Not anymore.

You’ve been duct-taping your soul shut with affirmations and brave faces. Holding the weight of other people’s peace like your own nervous system isn’t already frayed as hell.

You smile with your teeth, but your bones are screaming.

There’s no prize for being the most resilient.

There’s no finish line for the one who endures the longest.

There’s only the silence after the performance, when you’re finally alone with what still aches.

Let yourself fall.

Not into ruin—into truth.

Fall into the part of you that’s been whispering,

“Please. I can’t keep pretending this is fine.”

There is sacredness in the unraveling.

There is power in the pause where nothing makes sense.

And there is holiness in your exhaustion,

because it means you cared enough to carry so much for so long.

But you don’t have to anymore.

Let it drop.

Let it burn.

Let the mask melt into the fire you’ve been holding back.

And if it all falls apart?

Maybe that’s the first true thing that’s happened in a long, long time.

Fragments from the Edge:

Strength isn’t silence.

Falling apart is a kind of arrival.

You are not broken. You are breaking open.

You don’t have to be whole to be holy.

The fire doesn’t ask permission.

What breaks you might also name you.