# Poetry Unbound

## The Quiet Tug-of-War

There was a year I refused  
to let go of the past's grip.  
Its fingers, bruised and brittle,  
curled tight around my spine,  
kept me tethered to a version  
of myself that no longer fit.  
I told myself change was surrender,  
as though my defiance were armor.  
Burned bridges became monuments—  
silent, smoldering reminders  
that standing still is easier  
than walking into the unknown.  
In my sixth sober year, I saw it:  
How resistance isn't strength,  
just a clenched jaw caving inward,  
fighting tides that gift their release  
when you finally uncurl, exhale.  
Relief came soft as wet earth,  
a different kind of gravity,  
less like loss, more like choosing  
to pack light for the journey forward.