I want to scream so loud
it tears through the fabric of the fucking universe.
I want to rip my chest open
and let the chaos spill out—
every wound, every scar, every goddamn ache
that has been buried in me for too long.

This is not a cry for help.
This is a fucking war cry.
A declaration that I am here.
I have bled, I have burned,
and I am still fucking here.

I have stood face-to-face with demons
that had no names,
stared them down with shaking hands
and a heart full of fear,
and I said, “Do your worst.”

And they did.

They dragged me through hell.
They tore me apart, piece by piece,
until I couldn’t tell where the darkness ended
and I began.
They told me I was nothing,
and for too many years,
I believed them.

But let me tell you something about nothing:
it is the perfect place to rebuild.

I am not just the scars I carry.
I am the fire that burned through me,
the light that refused to die
even when the darkness tried to swallow it whole.

Do you think I’m broken?
Look closer.
Those cracks you see?
That’s where the light gets in.

I am not begging to be seen.
I am not pleading for approval.
I am fucking radiant.
I am every mistake I’ve made,
every battle I’ve fought,
every ounce of strength it took
to pull myself out of the pit
when no one else was there.

I have made choices that haunt me.
I have hurt people I loved,
burned bridges,
watched my life crumble to ash
more times than I can count.

But every time,
I rose.

With bloody hands and a shattered soul,
I climbed out of the rubble.
And I’ll keep climbing
until the day I die.

Because I know this now:
I am not my pain.
I am not my mistakes.
I am not the labels the world has slapped on me.

I am love.
I am rage.
I am light.

Do you think I’m invisible?
Do you think my silence means I’ve given up?
Look closer.
I have learnt to see in the dark.
I have learnt to find beauty
in the parts of myself that terrify me.

Loneliness has been my companion,
but it has also been my teacher.
It has taught me to sit with my pain,
to hear its whispers,
and to rise above it.

I am not whole.
I will never be whole.
But who the fuck cares?
Wholeness is a lie.
It is in the cracks, in the jagged edges,
that we find our truth.
It is in the darkness that we learn to burn.

To anyone who feels like they are drowning,
who feels like they will never be enough,
listen to me:
You are enough.

You are not broken.
You are a work in progress.
You are a masterpiece in the making,
every scar, every tear, every goddamn piece of you
is part of something beautiful.

And if you think your light has gone out,
look closer.
It’s there.
It’s always been there.

And even if all you can do today is flicker,
fucking flicker.
Because one day, you will burn so bright
the whole world will have no choice
but to see you.

I am not just alive.
I am alive with purpose.
I am alive with fire.
I am alive with a love so fierce
it could move mountains.

And I will not stop.
Not now.
Not ever.

Because this life,
this beautiful, brutal, chaotic mess of a life,
is worth every single breath I take.

©️Sophie Lewis 03.01.25