The Mask I Wear

I smile…
but sometimes it feels like my teeth are heavy stones,
stacked against the weight of silence in my chest.

I laugh…
but inside, the echo is hollow,
like a room no one visits anymore.

They say, “Be strong, you’ll be fine.”
But strength is not silence,
and fine is just another word for hiding.

Mental health…
isn’t just in the mind,
it’s in the trembling hands,
the sleepless nights,
the mornings you fight to rise when gravity feels personal.

Depression is not laziness.
Anxiety is not weakness.
Healing is not a straight line.

So I stand here,
not as a broken body,
but as a voice—
for the ones who choke on their own thoughts,
for the ones who wear smiles like masks,
for the ones who think their darkness means they don’t belong in the light.

Listen—
you are not your scars.
You are not your silence.
You are not your sickness.

You are the storm and the survivor,
the night and the sunrise.

And today…
if all you did was breathe,
you already won.