I'm still here

This piece was born from the day I almost didn’t make it.

Birth stripped me back to something primal. There was fear, the kind that makes everything slow down and sharpen at the same time. And there was strength I didn’t know I carried. Both existed together.

In the studio I wrote through it. Layer upon layer of words I could not say out loud. Gratitude tangled with terror. Love sitting beside the memory of how close it all felt. I obscured the text until it could no longer be read. Not to hide it, but because some experiences are not meant to be understood with the eyes. They are meant to be felt in the body.

The heavier marks hold the fear. The compressed, almost suffocating strokes. The quieter spaces speak of survival. Of breath returning. Of resilience.

Nothing is fully erased. The past sits beneath the surface, just as it does within me.

This work is my reminder that vulnerability and strength are not opposites. They arrive together.