But I am still sad. I am still human. learning, unlearning, trying, not trying. the fire burned more than my skin, it burned the dreams I was just about to touch. I cling to optimism like a candle in the wind telling myself there must be a reason, a pattern, a hidden design, that something bigger, brighter is coming, that life is really just a series of obstacles we learn to climb.

I was watching Selena’s interview with apple music where she said, “life doesn’t get easier, you just try to understand it better and regulate your emotions.” I felt that in my bones. because right now everything feels heavy. I am trying so hard to move froward but grief comes in waves: up, down, up, down.

There are nights I can’t sleep because of shadows, visions of being ended, flashes and the echoes of my screams burned into my memory. I try to turn my gaze to light, to creation, to art but melancholy is a river that knows my name. It pulls me under and tears fall like rain through cracks in the ceiling.

I fear for my life even though only a month has passed. I know I will rise again, stand on my feet, reclaim the things that once lit me up. but somewhere inside, a small trembling voice whispers, what if life slips through your hands again? what if the dreams I cradle so carefully catch fire once more?

And how can I not feel frustration, sorrow, longing? I haven’t watched a sunset melt across the sky in ages. I haven’t let my feet wander into grass that remembers me or drowned myself in a book. I am a tree bent in a storm roots shaken, leaves trembling still trying to touch the sky.

But then why are we so afraid of storms inside us? Why do we hush our tears as if rivers should apologise for flowing? Don’t we pause to capture the red fallen leaves just because they are so beautiful? Then why not the version of us, resting, crying, surviving is beautiful too. the version who is soft and bruised but alive. the one who is still hoping, creating, breathing through the ache, laughing with people even your chest is heavy, combing hair, taking steps even when the floor feels uneven.

Perhaps this brush of death was harsh but necessary. Cutting away what weighed me down, giving me the space to forgive my parents, to laugh a little louder, to love myself with a new, stubborn faith. to show the world my art not after the grief but through it while surviving, shaking, hoping: to write, let go, live, exist, believe in the universe.

Because I chose this life, smoke, fire, rivers, wind, sunlight exactly as it is. And even with ashes weighing down my wings I would choose it all over again.