the lightness in my chest feels heavy with what it took to get here, like carrying the ghost of every ache and every dismissive glance in the sun-baked streets of phoenix. and I get it, I do, the good now is so profoundly good it almost hurts, it makes the rage from the long stretch of being gaslit by so many faces, so many crisp white coats saying 'but you look fine,' it makes that raw anger surge up fresh and HOT, a sudden wave washing over the calm, a reminder that it wasn't always this way, that the fight was real, so real it left imprints on my bones. I stand here, feet under me, truly feeling them pushing forward, and then a flicker of that phantom throb in my knees, just a whisper, and for a second tank nudges my hand, like he still knows the storms that are gone, that I'm finally letting go. it's a miracle, this absence of constant internal screaming, but the cost, the sheer, crushing cost, it's still there, a shadow under the surface, a counterpoint to the relief that makes it all the more potent, all the more real.