"You don‘t have to stay"

There is a strange solace in the weight of storms, a quiet familiarity in the ache of worry. It wraps around me like an old, fraying coat — heavy, indeed, but mine.

Stillness feels sharp, like glass underfoot:

Too clear, too quiet, too foreign to trust. So I stir the waters, summon the shadows, weaving tension from air, turning peace into a place I cannot stay.

My body hums with the song it has always known, a melody of knots and restless nights, a chorus of stomach aches and whispered fears. Joy seems slippery, like sunlight I cannot hold, a mirage that fades the closer I reach.

And always, there is the door in the distance—

a thought, soft as a lullaby:

“You don’t have to stay.”

Not an invitation, but a presence, lingering in the quiet corners of the mind.

I’ve danced this dance since childhood, learning to thrive in the chaos, to find comfort in the gloom. At 28, it feels like a second skin, a map of the only world I’ve ever known.

Yet sometimes, in fragile moments, I dream of skies without storms, of days not haunted by the weight of what ifs. But how do you learn to love the light when the shadows have always felt like home?

— Lux