You Are the Song, Not the Echo

The day is settling into its final corners, and the quiet brings a sound you did not ask to hear. Your own laugh, rising from your throat, suddenly wearing the voice of the one who broke you. In that split second, the mirror cracks. You feel the old terror that you are becoming them, that their shadow has grown tall enough to swallow your light whole.

But listen closely to the silence after the laugh fades. The voice may echo, but the source is different. The light that shines in you is not borrowed from them; it is older than their shadow, deeper than their reach. It was there before they ever spoke your name, and it remains untouched by their tone.

You are not the echo. You are the song.