The Dreamer's Pen

My body is not betraying me.
It is speaking.
Soft, persistent, unyielding in its truth.

I have lost, yet I have gained, not in numbers, but in weight that is unseen, in the burden of something growing, pressing against the fabric of who I was.

A mass settles beneath my ribs,
rooted like a secret,
stretching the limits of my skin,
demanding space I never offered.

And I was cruel to it.
I pinched, I pulled, I cursed its shape, as if shame could shrink it,
as if loathing could erase what was real.

I fought against seams, against reflection, as if resistance could rewrite the truth of me.
But the body remembers what the mind forgets: change is not a choice.

So I unclench my fists,
loosen the waistband,
trace the lines of my shifting form
with something softer than before.

Not broken. Not wrong.
Just shifting. Becoming.