I want to talk about what happened.
Not to relive it, not to drown in its echo,
but to honor the truth without letting it consume me.

There has to be a way.
A way to trace the outline of the past
without coloring it in with sorrow.
To speak of the storm
without summoning the thunder.

I’ve learned to care for the wounds
like sacred pages in a book I no longer read aloud.
They exist. They mattered.
But they do not define the chapters ahead.

To name the pain is not to invite it back.
It is to give it shape, so it no longer shapeshifts in the dark.
It is to say: I see you. I survived you.
And now, I choose peace.

So I speak—not with bitterness,
but with the quiet strength of someone
who has walked through fire
and now tends to the embers with grace.

This is not a story of hurt.
It is a story of healing
told in whispers,
wrapped in love. ❤

©️ Beatriz Esmer