I wake up with pressure where peace should be.
Tight chest, cold hands—
like my body’s got bad news it won’t share with me.
I open my eyes, but the war’s already started.
No trigger, no trauma—just wired and guarded.

People say “you’re good, just breathe,”
like lungs are the problem.
Like air ever fixed the kind of drowning I do in silence.
I’m not sad.
I’m not mad.
I’m just… off.
And nobody sees it when the switch flips soft.

I laugh on cue.
I answer, “I’m fine.”
But inside, I’m pacing the edge of a line
I can’t name.
I can’t cross.
I can’t leave behind.

You ever feel scared for no reason at all?
Like your bones remember something you don’t recall?
Like you’re the only one in a room full of light
who’s being followed by shadows no one else fights?

It’s not drama.
It’s not weak.
It’s a weight you carry in your teeth—
locked jaw, clenched fists, fake calm.
A panic that wears your face and moves on.

Some nights I just stare at the ceiling,
trying to outrun a thought I’m not even feeling.
I pray for stillness but get static instead—
a quiet so loud it screams in my head.

This ain’t for pity. This ain’t for show.
This is survival. This is let go or blow.
This is for every heartbeat I had to fake.
Every smile I stitched for everyone’s sake.

So if I ever seem distant, short, or strange—
I’m not cold.
I’m in chains.
Fighting to breathe in a body that blames
me
for the storm I didn’t choose,
for a mind that tightens every fuse.

Anxiety don’t knock. It just breaks in.
Puts its feet up and asks how I’ve been.
So I tell it—
“You again?”
It smiles.
“Yeah. You know I live in your skin.”

We are taught to choose,
as if indecision is death—
as if silence is weakness,
and hesitation, sin.
But truth isn’t always loud.
And power
isn’t always movement.

There are moments
when the greatest strength
is doing nothing.
Not out of fear,
but out of wisdom.
Because not every door needs opening.
Not every question needs an answer.
Not every fire deserves your water.

Sometimes, the chaos wants your reaction.
It feeds on your urgency.
It tricks you into thinking
that action alone
equals progress.
But no—
discernment is the throne.
Restraint is the crown.

The strongest ones don’t always strike.
They observe.
They wait.
They listen to the wind
before choosing where to plant their flag.
They watch the pieces move
before touching the board.

There is courage in stillness.
There is defiance in the pause.
Because when you don’t have to decide,
you reclaim the power of timing.
You allow truth to mature,
emotion to settle,
and consequences to reveal themselves.

Some storms burn out
without a single match lifted.
Some lies unspool
without confrontation.
And some choices solve themselves
when you give them the mercy of silence.

You are not passive.
You are precise.
You are the calm in a world of reaction.
You are the breath
before the leap.
And the space
between rage and regret.

So if the moment does not demand a decision,
then don’t offer one.
Let life unfold
without your forced grip.
Let wisdom be the silence
between questions
you never needed to ask.

They counted coins.
You counted questions.
They chased profit like prey—
you chased truth like prophecy.
And though the world didn’t notice at first,
you knew:
fortune follows those who feed the mind
before the hand.

While others raced the clock
trying to beat the system,
you were building one.
One forged in quiet corners,
long nights,
books full of dust and diamonds.
You didn’t hunger for the gold.
You hungered for the why.

And with each answer,
you laid bricks beneath your future
while they played hopscotch on sand.
Because money is a moment.
But knowledge—
knowledge is momentum.
A force that compounds
in silence
until the noise can’t ignore it.

You didn’t flaunt degrees.
You wore humility
like armor.
You didn’t scream credentials.
You let your results do the whispering.
And soon enough,
the same world that dismissed your hunger
became ravenous for your insights.

Money came.
Quietly, respectfully.
Like a servant to its master.
Because when the mind is rich,
the rest must follow.
The paycheck finds the problem-solver.
The opportunities find the thinker.
The throne finds the visionary
who spent years building it
in solitude.

So study more.
Ask better questions.
Break what you know
and build it wiser.
Because intellect is the only currency
that survives every crash.

They may buy the room,
but you built the foundation.
And in the end,
those who seek wisdom
are the ones who rule.

No one is coming to tell you how.
No divine instruction manual.
No whispered secret from the wind.
You are the blueprint.
The task is the test.
And excellence—
that quiet, burning force within—
is not suggested. It’s required.

You weren’t given this burden to fumble it.
You weren’t chosen to coast.
You were meant to craft.
To carve the best possible path
from raw stone and stubborn will.

Others may shrug,
do the bare minimum,
pray for luck or blame the sky.
But you—
you shoulder the weight with intention.
Because if it must be done,
let it be done with honor.
Let it be a testament.

There are a thousand ways
to do something halfway.
But only one to make it yours—
to wear the result like a crest
on your chest,
knowing no one else
could’ve walked that road
with the same fire in their stride.

Responsibility isn’t a chain.
It’s a sword.
And those who fear it,
never rise.
But those who wield it—
they shape legacies.

You don’t just take the task.
You take ownership of its destiny.
You ask, “How can I make this better?”
Even when it’s good.
Especially when it’s good.
Because mastery doesn’t settle.
It refines. It reimagines. It reinvents.

And every moment you treat effort
as sacred,
you are building something eternal.
Not just a finished job,
but a symbol of your integrity.
A reminder that greatness
isn’t about the glory—
it’s about the grit.

So take the task.
Not lightly.
But boldly.
Find the best way forward,
even if no one else does.
Especially then.

Because to complete the mission
is survival.
But to elevate it—
to perfect it—
that is legacy.

Chaos has a language. It speaks in scattered thoughts,
racing heartbeats, and dreams that unravel by morning.
You feel it before you name it—
a weight behind the eyes,
a knot where clarity should be.
But the moment you pick up the pen,
something ancient stirs.
A primal magic in ink,
the kind that bridges storm to stillness.

You write the mess.
You spell out the wound.
You stop pretending the fire is manageable
and you draw the flames with honest hands.
Suddenly, you see it.
It has a name. A shape. A boundary.
What once was an unknowable shadow
becomes a charted storm—
still fierce, but no longer infinite.

You were not falling apart.
You were simply too full.
And the act of writing—
it is how you make space again.
Each sentence is a blade.
Every period, a pause to breathe.
You dissect the chaos
not to kill it,
but to understand it.

A problem on paper is no longer the beast in your brain.
It is half-tamed—
a creature seen and labeled.
And that is no small victory.
That is how healing begins.

When you make the intangible visible,
you strip it of its tyranny.
And what was once unspeakable
becomes a line in your story—
one you now control.

Do not underestimate the miracle
of seeing yourself on the page.
You are not broken,
just burdened.
And in the light of your own truth,
the darkness begins to lose its grip.

So write.
Not because it solves everything,
but because it solves something.
Enough to move. Enough to breathe.
Enough to remember:
You are not what you carry.
You are the one who names it,
faces it,
and lets it go.

The fear begins as a whisper—soft, almost kind.
A flicker in the shadows of thought,
a ghost of what could go wrong.
But you look. You listen. You feed it.
And fear, once invited, grows fangs.
You cradle catastrophe in your mind
until it sleeps beside your dreams
and wakes before your coffee.

The more you dread,
the more it becomes a self-fulfilling spell,
cast by trembling hands
and minds too haunted to see
that the thing we run from
is often drawn closer
by the thundering echo of our retreat.

You feared they’d leave—
so your anxious questions pushed them to the door.
You feared the fall—
and in bracing, you slipped.
You feared silence—
and your panic spoke loud enough to echo.

The universe listens not with judgment,
but with obedience.
And it moves
in the direction of your gaze.

Fear is a script you recite so often
that life begins to follow its stage directions.
It becomes the blueprint of breakdowns.
And once you expect disaster,
you live rehearsing it—
repeating lines that summon storms,
as if rain was your destiny.

But it’s not.

You are not cursed.
You are not doomed.
You are simply powerful—
and that power bends to belief.
So shift it.
Breathe life into faith, not fear.
Envision calm, not collapse.
See love arriving, not leaving.
See doors opening instead of locking.

Because when you choose to feed hope
with the same hunger you once gave anxiety,
the world responds.
The winds turn.
And suddenly, the monsters
become mist.
The worst-case no longer rules your mind.
And the life you feared
stops knocking
because you finally stopped answering.

Fear only wins
when you crown it king.

They told me I was born of stardust—
a soft echo spun from cosmic ash,
but no one warned me that even stardust
can be stepped on, swept up,
or forgotten beneath someone’s shoes.

I’ve been trying to shine in places
that worship shadows.
Kissed wounds into people who only
brought me their swords.
Let my chest be an altar for the broken,
but no one stayed long enough to pray.
Still, I gave—
my time, my truth, my trembling hands—
as if love were currency
and I could pay off loneliness
with interest.

But I am not debt.
I am not what they abandoned.
I am the sunrise stubborn enough
to come back every morning,
even when the world sleeps through my arrival.
I am the quiet resilience of oceans
pulling tides into rhythm
with a moon that never speaks.

I’ve learned the universe doesn’t apologize
for burning stars into oblivion—
it just makes room for new constellations.
And maybe I’m not meant to be
understood by everyone.
Maybe I’m here
to remind the forgotten
that they were never invisible.

So if you are reading this—
gripping your soul in clenched fists,
carrying the kind of grief
that leaks when no one’s watching—
know this:

You are not the wound.
You are the healing.
You are not lost.
You are the map someone else needs.
You are not too much.
You are the weight of light—
and that’s why they couldn’t hold you.

Deep inside
You’ve planted roots
I can feel you taking over
I am a subject in your kingdom
You are the king and queen of my whole being
Darkness that no light can penetrate
My ruler, my Lord, my curse
You grow bigger and stronger everyday
I simply wither away
Hoping to stand clear of drowning
There is no place in my mind to feel safe
To be safe
I am a haunted house
Controlled by you
Never ending reels in my house of horror
Never forget
I’m trapped in my past
I can’t find my way back home

The crowd gathered round as you rode in on your high horse. We watched as you took your seat on the highest pedestal. As you looked down on those of us on the ground, you decided we were simple fools and peasants. Nothing of your stature. You straightened up and sat tall announcing that the time had come for you to pass judgement. We bowed our heads shamefully, for you told us we aren’t worth a name. Because we are all human garbage, we can be classed as a stereotype. You won’t allow our eyes to meet your gaze, we are too unworthy to be socially accepted by you. “Wasted space,” is what you say, “the world has no place for your kind.” You tell us we are simple minded, useless, and no good. We should never be allowed to associate with your graces. We have not earned the right to stand where you have stood. You mock us and laugh in our faces. We are merely entertainment for someone like you. You have ruled that we are not fit to be among the class of high society and pound your gavel to finalize the sentencing. We watch as you sit back, pleased with yourself and all your wondrous accomplishments. But as we stand together here on the ground, we dance and laugh and live freely. We are proud not to have to sit on a throne or bare the crown of perfection. We embrace our simple lives full of love and joy. For we know: we may have a long, treacherous journey to the top but we have no other way to look but up. As for you, sat way up high, there is nowhere left to go. Only down. Even the greatest kings and queens could never defeat gravity.

This was written November 26th, 2020. I had been struggling with the death of a friend; it happened to hit a little too close to home for me. I had a sense of survivor’s guilt. I felt that it should have been, could very easily have been me. It wreaked havoc on my mental state for months, thus my therapist suggested writing this in her memory. I remember it as if it happened yesterday, my therapist being so compassionate but also cautioning me, bracing me, making sure I understood that being a part of this community, Emily will not be the only person I lose to suicide or even murder. We as trans people do not have a long-life expectancy.

So, we need a little back story. I met Emily in December in a support group on Facebook for depression, anxiety and suicide. She is a transgender woman like myself. She is 25 years old and would have been 26 this month. Her and another transwoman we met in that group bonded rather quickly over not just our suicidal ideations, self-harm and depression, but also from all 3 of us sharing the trials and tribulations of being transgender in this shit hole of a country.

Her family disowned her for being trans, and very rarely used the correct pronouns. She was kicked out of her home yet was able to find an apartment where she lived in Atlanta. She hated being trans. She was happier on hormones of course but still hated the fact she was not a cis woman. She was in enormous debt from so many medical Bill’s due to numerous suicide attempts and being hospitalized in psych wards. In the 4 months we knew each other she probably spent 5 or 6 weeks in a psych ward. She was of the mind she would fake it until she made it, meaning whatever she had to do to get off suicide watch. She swore once her medical bills were paid off, she would end it. She planned to wait because she did not want to stick the family that disowned her with the medical bills.

She was always thinking about others and loved to please people. We all became very close in such a short amount of time. When she was in the psych hospital, we would call daily to check on her. She attempted three times in the time I knew her, once with a noose but the rope broke. Twice with pills, the last one resulting in seizures and a hospital stay before another psych stay.

We had an agreement between the three of us. We knew how depressed we were. We knew we all longed for death, and we hated how people were trying to keep us alive when all we wanted was to die. How could people be so selfish? So, we gave each other permission to die. We would not try to talk each other out of it because we understood each other. We agreed that what we would do was to at least say goodbye to the others in the group. Give the others a chance to say goodbye and that we love each other one last time. That did not happen. Emily left us and we did not get to say goodbye to her.

I really want to be mad at her for that, but I understand her pain. I understand her fear that we would try and talk her out of it. I am so very sad that I lost her, but I am comforted in the knowledge that she Isn’t suffering anymore. Emily confided in me outside of our group chat a couple of times that one thing that was keeping her going was she did not want others to be sad about her loss. And that she feared Rose (the other one in our group) would kill herself if in fact either one of us did kill ourselves. Rose mentioned as much that she would do that.

We must do better as humans. Misgendering takes such a toll on us. The things we go through daily wears us down every day, and it seems like this entire country is on a witch hunt with us being the witches (I’m pagan but people just say witches). We are slowly being killed off by mental illness due to the struggles of being transgender. And those struggles, those mental illnesses are caused from outside influences 99 percent of the time.

We need to talk about this more openly. So many suffer from depression and suicidal ideation. We must remove the stigma from this topic. People have to stop being afraid to talk about it. RIP Emily Nicole Brown. I will miss you.

Here Is the link to her blog. You will get a better mindset of her thinking. http://www.emilythetransgirl.wordpress.com