My Body Is a Map of What I’ve Survived.

There are places in my body that remember him before I do. The way my shoulders tighten when someone raises their voice, the way my breath shortens when a door slams too hard, these are not random reactions. They are coordinates etched by survival. My daughter’s father taught my body to brace, not for love, but for impact. His presence left bruises that faded, but the imprint remained, in my posture, in my nervous system, in the way I learned to scan a room before entering.

For a long time, I thought healing meant erasing those marks. I tried to soften the flinch, to rewrite the map with prettier lines. But my body is not a canvas for denial, it’s a living archive. It held her while holding the weight of him. It protected us both when no one else did. And now, it speaks in tremors and tenderness, reminding me that survival is not shameful. It’s sacred.

This body is mine again. Not because it forgot, but because I’ve learned to listen. Every scar, every ache, every instinct, it’s all part of the terrain I’ve crossed. I am not just marked, I am mapped. And every mark is a monument to what I’ve endured, what I’ve reclaimed, and what I refuse to carry forward.