and that faint, almost imperceptible ache in the back of my throat, the one that sometimes catches when the air is particularly thick with salt and sun, used to be a CONSTANT companion, a dull pressure of pretending. this body now, it remembers what it felt like to be a cage, but it also remembers the precise moment the latch finally sprang open, a shudder right through the spine, and now it just EXPANDS, a slow, deliberate bloom. the quiet hum that lives under everything now, that persistent, full-body THUM that says oh, this is the one, this is what it feels like to actually be here.