Weight of the World

Some mornings I wake up with a weight in my chest,

Each choice like a stone that won't let me rest,

The job that I took, and the one left behind,

The words that I swallowed still echoes in my mind.

The heaviness sits where my heartbeat should be,

Not sorrow exactly, but gravity's fee

The cost of awareness, of knowing too much,

Those moments both matter and fade at a touch.

I carry the burden of dreams that have died,

My mother's bright hopes and my father's closed pride,

The ghosts of the words that we never quite said,

The paths that I might have chosen instead.

Even my joy feels too heavy to hold,

This beautiful ache that will never grow old,

The weight of tomorrow, the pull of the past,

The knowledge that nothing can possibly last.

But maybe this heaviness teaches me how

To treasure the weight of this moment, this now

To shoulder the burden of being awake,

To love fully knowing that hearts always break.

So I rise with the weight of my own beating heart,

Of consciousness pulling my world apart,

This unbearable heaviness, exquisite and true

The cost and the gift of just being, just you.