Priya writes

The news bleeds through every crack in the day,

names of children I will never meet

etched on my chest like bruises.

Of journalist peers whose death cuts through…

As the world burns, we

scrolls past it; distracted; surviving.

I feel like I hold the weight of a thousand voices

in a body that trembles

just from standing still.

I am tired of screaming into walls,

tired of carrying rage like a second spine,

tired of asking the sky why

it is silent.

Sometimes I dream of leaving,

slipping into a place where

the world is smaller,

quieter,

where grief cannot find me.

But even there, I know

the fire follows,

the headlines crawl under the door,

the helplessness

sleeps beside me.

So I breathe, deep,

not because it heals the world,

but because it keeps me here,

a witness,

even as my heart

aches to run.