The Stone Within
“There’s a stone asleep beneath my skin. No one sees it, but it weighs me down.” Some days, I move through the world as if everything were normal: I pay bills, though my hand trembles holding the pen. I greet people, while my eyes search for a quiet corner. I smile, even though part of me lingers somewhere behind. Beneath the surface, my inner world holds something unseen. A stone. Silent. Cold as marble. Heavy, as if filled with secrets. Sometimes it’s nothing but a faint pull, like a tight thread hidden beneath my skin. Other times, it’s a dense weight, so deep it feels as though it might drag me under. It doesn’t show on my face when I laugh. It hides between careful words. But it’s there, still and alert, beating like a quiet pulse of stone. And I’ll confess something: The weight of being misunderstood hurts more than the stone itself. The eyes that see nothing. The question that keeps returning: “Are you still dealing with that?” Carrying something ...