There is a world inside me
made of chaos and dreams
the love I give is deeper
than the Marianas Trench
when I feel pain
it can shake mountains

I feel everything
too much, they say
too loud, too sharp, too fragile
too...something
Always too.

Society prefers its storms 
to be predictable
as they whisper my diagnosis 
like a warning label
my humanity gets buried
beneath the stereotypes
the villain,
the burden,
the broken thing wandering through
the wrong story

What they don't see
are the stitches I tug tight
over old wounds 
the way I map out my triggers 
like a cartographer tracing fault lines
learning where I break
so I can learn where I can rebuild

They don't see how growth feels
like climbing Mount Everest 
wearing shoes made of glass
how healing is a language
I've had to invent
with nothing but trembling hands 
and a heart that refuses to give up

I am not my storms
though I weather them
I am not my past
though it echos in me
I am a strong woman
learning and stumbling along the way
with hope that keeps showing up
eve when I don't ask it to

So let them misunderstand
let them name me with their fear
while I continue to grow from everything 
they thought would break me

- Living with Borderline