Negotiations with the Body

Every morning I rise is an act of defiance. Every night I stay is a kind of miracle.

To the one who made it through another day without telling anyone how hard it was.
To the one who thought no one would notice if they disappeared.
To the quiet ones.
The smiling ones.
The ones who stay soft even when it hurts.
You don’t have to be screaming to be in pain.
This part of you deserves to be seen too.
This is for the ache that no one clapped for.
The survival that didn’t earn a medal.
The breath that stayed, even when everything inside begged not to.

This poem is a part of my collection “Please Stay Alive”— It is a mirror for all the pain you tried to bury under functioning.
It’s the internal collapse that no one sees because you kept showing up anyway.
The numbness mistaken for laziness.
The hunger mistaken for attention-seeking.
The silence mistaken for strength.
These poems name the ache that hides beneath the “I’m fine.”
The kind that grows teeth when you’re alone in your bed.
The kind that makes you feel like a ghost in your own life.
You are not imagining it. You are not crazy.
You’re someone who was asked to carry the unbearable without help.
And you did.
Please—stay alive.
You’re allowed to be seen.

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this bed is a coffin sometimes

I sink into the mattress
and it swallows me whole—
not like comfort—
like consent
to stop existing for a while

I pull the covers over my head
as if darkness can forgive me
for not trying harder today

it’s quiet here
but not the good kind
more like the hum of a freezer
more like being preserved in sleep
until someone remembers to wake me

they say rest is radical
but this isn’t rest—
this is disappearance
this is scrolling until 3 a.m.
then staring at the ceiling
as if it owes me something
for surviving another day

my alarm rings
but the body stays
because it knows
the war doesn’t pause
just because the sun came up

and I’ve spent so many mornings
mourning the version of me
who used to rise without thinking

now it takes negotiation
a bargain with shame
a bribe to the bones
just to move

this bed is a coffin sometimes
but I keep getting out of it—
and that has to mean something

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please stay alive—

because every time you crawl out of that gravity, it is a resurrection. Maybe no one claps. Maybe no one sees. But the act of rising when everything in you says don’t—is the kind of power they write scripture about. You are not lazy. You are surviving something invisible. One day, that bed will feel like softness again. One day, rest will be chosen—not collapsed into.
Stay until then.
Stay because even stillness counts as fighting.
And you, my love, are still here.

This one walks the razor’s edge. It’s not about drama. It’s about the ache to not exist—without hurting anyone, without causing chaos. But even that wish holds a cry for relief. We name it now, so it doesn't win in silence.

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All content, including poem, title, and accompanying text, is
© Solena Vyhra, 2025. All rights reserved.
Do not copy, reproduce, repost, or use without explicit written permission.
This poem is part of the series: “Please Stay Alive” — a poetic archive of near-deaths, interrupted endings, and the quiet rebellions that kept us breathing.