Last night, as my mind was grasping at straws for a reason to be awake, it started narrating the pain flaring in my lower back and hips. Turning it into words. Into poetry. Little visual metaphors born from the feeling of pain itself. My mind screamed about it long enough that I finally picked up my phone to text myself a reminder… to coax those beautiful slices of language from the ache.

From the bright tie-dye colors I could feel spreading out, reaching into the nooks and crannies of my bones and wrapping quietly around my muscles. Tightening so slowly you almost don’t realize it’s happening… until you do, and it’s too late, and you’re already sinking into the quicksand.

Maybe it was because I was in less pain this morning than I was last night. Or because my mind had been drifting in that beautiful middle place between waking and dreaming… where you can’t quite be sure if a thought is your own, or a dream, or a secret whispered by some old soul who hasn’t fully let go of the mortal world.

The words I chose to remind myself of it all:

bright spots

It felt like the most beautiful phrase last night. How something luminous could come out of pain like that. But morning-me is a different creature entirely. The headspace shifted. The body shifted. Bright spots means something else now.

I think the words died on me because the bright spots weren’t meant to be written. Not today. Last night they begged to be named. This morning they slipped out of my grip like something wild, something that knows being witnessed can break it.

So I’m letting them go feral in the dark corners of me… glowing just enough that I can find my way, but not enough that anyone else could.

Some brightness belongs to the shadows first.