The Weight of Being

by, Samantha Syrnich TLC

I am a soul still breathing
through the splinters of a thousand storms—
alive not by chance,
but by the covenant I made with the light
when it pulled me back from the dark.

Yet—
here I stand,
measured by strangers in coins
too small to bear the weight of my name,
my breath,
my fight.
Even those who should know me
have turned my living into a ledger,
my heart scrawled in the margins,
my miracles reduced to debts
they refuse to count.

I carry this life like a flame cupped against the wind,
shielding it from hands that would smother it,
from laws that forgot to guard it,
from years that tried to break it.

There are proposals still unwritten,
dreams still unfurled,
legacies aching to be set in stone—
for my children, my grandchildren,
my namesake across the sea
whose name was born from my own
like a vow I will not let die.

Even now,
as the body falters
and the clock leans forward into shadow,
I plant seeds in the soil of tomorrow.
If I am taken before their bloom,
let it be known—
I was the one who knelt in the dirt,
bleeding hope into the earth.

The sorrow?
It is the quiet devaluing of my breath,
the ache of living half-caged
when my spirit was forged to fly.
The grief of being unseen
by eyes that should blaze when I enter the room.

And still,
I strive.
I try and try.
Through the searing pain of marrow and memory,
I remain.
A miracle—
even if the world will not name me as one.

One day,
perhaps after my hands have stilled,
those who could not see me
will trace the outline of my work in the dust
and realize—
the gold they ignored
was the very light
that might have saved them.

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