There is a tree behind my old house

split clean by lightning

years ago.

Everyone said it was finished,

a dead thing waiting to fall.

But every monsoon

it forced out one stubborn green leaf

as if insisting

I am still here

even if I am not whole.


I think about that tree

on nights when my own fractures ache,

when the world asks me to stand tall

but forgets I am held together

by quiet battles

no one sees.


Life will strike you

in the exact place you thought was safe,

it will burn you

from the inside first,

and you will swear

you have nothing left to grow with.


But some part of you

a small, trembling, unreasonable part

will still push out a leaf

in the middle of a storm

just to prove

that breaking and breathing

can happen in the same body.


And maybe

that is what living really is

not winning

not healing

just refusing to disappear

even when the lightning

keeps learning your name.