I do not need quiet.
Quiet learned how to lie to me.

I need the storm
to strip the sound down to bone,
to tear the grit from my teeth,
to shake loose the thing in my chest
that mistook endurance for safety.

The halls were crowded with almost-truths,
with shadows practicing someone else's voice.
I swallowed words that were never mine to carry,
truths delivered too late to be chosen.

Give me something sharp
that does not pretend to heal.
Salt in the wound,
pressure on the break,
anything honest enough
to stop the ache from echoing.

Let the wind take what never belonged to me.
Let the fire burn it to its working shape.
Let the tide drag it out of my body
until what remains
answers to my name.

Every whisper learned how to bait.
Every silence learned how to accuse.
I kept circling a name
as if justification were a debt I owed.

They said calm down.
They did not hear what I heard.
They did not feel the ground shift,
the moment stability learned how to move.

Give me something that survives daylight.
Give me one solid thing
so my hands remember
they are not required to clench.

Let the storm take it.
Let the fire mark it clean.
Let the tide pull blood from the cut
and leave me standing,
whole,
even if the edge still burns.

I am not breaking.
I am not running.
I am breathing through the remains
of ghosts that never earned my fear.

I do not need saving.
I need reality.

I need the storm.
I need the fire.
I need the tide.

I need what is real
to finish the work.

Penned by my hand on the 25th of Sarapin, in the year 994 AF.