Daniel Ejeteh is a writer based in Newmarket, Ontario. Describing this poem, he says: "It’s not that it was the enemy, it was the inner me, the in-ner ME." Daniel recommends Invincible Season 3 Episode 8.
I smile, and they take it as proof, as if the curve of my lips could erase the wreckage inside me. They see me walking, head high, shoulders back, as if I am untouched, unshaken. They don’t see the weight I carry, how every step feels like a betrayal of the love I still hold for you. I laugh at the right moments, nod when I should, my laughter is an echo in an empty room where your voice once lived. I wear this mask so well that even I’ve begun to believe it. I whisper I’m fine so often the words lose meaning, but when the world falls silent, when the night is deep and still, I can hear the truth screaming through the quiet. I reach for hope, it dissolves like candle wax, slipping through my fingers, leaving only the sting of longing and the scars of holding on too tightly. I pretend I’ve healed, convince myself that time has stitched me back together. The truth is, I drown in the weight of yesterday, gasping for air in a sea of what-ifs, reaching for a shore that no longer exists. I chase love. It feels like chasing a star that burned out long ago. Its light still flickering in the distance, nothing more than a memory of something that once was. I reach for warmth, all I find is the ghost of your touch, the cold where your arms used to be, the hollow where your heartbeat once echoed against mine. They don’t see it. They don’t see the war inside me, the battle between who I pretend to be and the shattered soul beneath. They call me strong. Strength feels like a lie. Inside, I am still that broken thing. Aching, longing, trying to remember what it feels like to be whole again.