I Used the Bigger Word With Myself in the Mirror

Dear Delyara, I said it out loud. Not to anyone else. Just to my own reflection in the bathroom after another day of calling it “a lot” and “a phase” and “just a rough week.” I looked at my face and said the bigger word. The truer word. The one I keep trying to avoid because once I use it, I can’t keep pretending my pain is ordinary enough to outrun. Hearing it in my own voice changed something. It made the room feel more honest. It made my face look younger somehow, just for a second, because it was no longer working so hard to conceal what it was carrying. Sometimes I think naming the truth is the first time you really let yourself stand beside it instead of one step away. That is what it felt like.