When my pen hits this paper, it doesn’t glide smoothly—it scratches, like boots on gravel, like breath escaping broken ribs. The ink flows heavily, filled with nights I thought would never end, and mornings that arrived anyway, like an unpaid bill. I’ve been down— not the kind of low you can easily discuss, but the kind that weighs in your chest and challenges you to stay still. Yet, I still moved. Not elegantly—no, I dragged myself onward, my palms scraped by doubt, my knees bruised from yesterday. Each step felt like it was taken without permission, as if I wasn’t meant to succeed, as if the world had already determined that my story ended back there. But I continued to write. Line after line, even when the words trembled, even when my hand forgot what hope felt like. You see, strength isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s simply refusing to give up when giving up seems logical. Sometimes it’s just breathing when the air feels borrowed. And now—this page isn’t pristine, it’s marked, creased from every battle I’ve endured. But it belongs to me. And when my pen hits this paper, it reveals the truth: I bent, I broke, I doubted— but I did not stay down.