April 2026 - Vol. 23, Issue 2

When the doctor told my mother I was born

she said I might not walk. My father, that I might not run.

Now I do both, though not without pain. I gave up hope

years ago. I don’t believe in pity, or weakness,

or chance, but I do believe in courage.

How easily it can be doubted.

How quickly it can be hidden.

My mother asks me not to hide my scars.

I don’t. Not because she asked, but because they’re

all I’ve ever carried. My father wonders

if my bones are soft (he thinks I was

made broken). I tell him nothing.

I tell him fire moves through my body the way

blood moves through his. I was once a stillborn too.

Yet I breathed and I breathed and I turned into

healing. That healing now walks with you,

stays like a shadow in an open

field. All this power was once silence, you

know. All this body was once doubted,

you know. My heart thanks its builders

every day, my mother and my father. They

are the best teachers I’ve ever known.