Before the music, there was the prayer.

Before the stage, there was the whisper in the dark.

I did not know what I was praying to.

Only that something had to hold me when nothing else did.

She taught me what freedom looked like.

Not the kind in songs. The real kind.

The kind that makes you want to burn your old self down

and build something honest from the ash.

I used to run from it.

Now I sit with it. Ask it questions.

Pain does not visit without a lesson.

The trick is being still enough to hear it.

I am not healed. I am healing.

Every day. Every song. Every breath.

The wound became the instrument.

The silence became the melody.