Zebra Seeking Spoons

Some mornings it is a quiet ache,

a low cloud that never fully lifts.

Other days it is a storm

that hums beneath the skin,

vibrating through bone and breath

as if announcing itself

in every direction.

I move carefully now,

as though carrying something fragile

and strangely heavy—

a weight no one else can see

but I cannot put down.

There is a grief in this,

for the life I imagined living

without negotiation,

without needing to measure each step,

each hour,

each cost.

But there is also something like defiance—

a silver lining that isn’t bright

so much as persistent.

A small steady light

that returns

even after I’ve convinced myself

it is gone.

I am learning to build a life

inside this changing weather,

to name myself

not by what hurts

but by what continues:

the breath,

the reaching,

the rise after the fall,

the quiet choosing

to stay.