When Everything Comes Apart

Chapter 3 – Poem

Sometimes life pulls the rug out from under us without warning. We find ourselves shattered, stripped of control, and facing a silence that feels endless. But breakdowns aren’t endings. They’re the openings we never expected.

This first part of the chapter explores what it feels like when everything falls apart—and how, in that falling, something honest begins to stir.

The Moment Before

It happened on a night I didn’t see coming. The world had been pressing down for so long, the weight folded into every breath and step. I was standing on a fragile edge, the perfect mask finally cracked, the facade slipping through my fingers.

All at once, the walls I’d built so carefully collapsed inward—not with a dramatic crash, but with a slow, relentless unraveling. The quiet panic that whispered beneath the surface finally spilled out.

I was broken, raw, and utterly unmoored.

The Opening

The house holds its breath,
silent except for flames flickering,
watching the unraveling inside.

My body feels like a cage of shadows and whispers.
Each breath pulls a fragile thread,
drawing me closer to the edge—
where surrender is the only way forward.

A breakdown blooms—
not defeat,
not an ending,
but a secret door where light slips through.

Through that small slit,
fresh air rushes in,
the first pulse of what could be.

The body remembers to hold itself again.
The heart trembles like a bird learning to fly.

Sometimes, the unraveling comes gently. Other times, it knocks the breath from your body. What happens next isn’t pretty. But it’s necessary.

Part 2 is what comes after the mask breaks—when the world gets too quiet and you're left with everything you’ve avoided. And eventually, what you begin to hear.