The Mind Is a War They Don’t See

By Breckyn Forcey

I have lived
in a house with no windows,
where the walls
were made of my own skin,
and the silence
sounded like screaming
under a pillow.

You don’t have to bleed
to be dying.
You don’t have to fall
to be broken.
Sometimes
you’re just existing
like a ghost with good posture.

And still,
they say:
“Have you tried yoga?”
“Just drink more water.”
“Smile—you’re too pretty to be sad.”

As if serotonin
is something you can buy
with a coupon code.

As if panic
listens to logic.
As if depression
reads self-help books
and goes away
because you took a walk.

This is not sadness.
This is a fog with teeth.
A weight
you can’t put down
because it’s sewn
into your name.

They tell us
to reach out.
But hotlines
have hold music.
And therapists
have waitlists
longer than our breaking points.

They say mental health matters,
but fund prisons
instead of care.
Build padded cells
instead of support networks.
Label us unstable
when we can’t keep pace
with a world
that measures worth
in productivity
instead of breath.

We are told
to push through.
To hustle.
To grind.
To wear our burnout
like a badge.

But what is success
if it costs
your own heartbeat?

I have seen friends
who shine like galaxies
dim themselves
for fear of being “too much.”

I have held hands
with survivors
who speak in scars
and metaphors
because plain English
doesn’t hold
this kind of pain.

And I have learned:
Healing
is not linear.
It is not pretty.
It is not
a 30-day challenge
with a happy ending.

Sometimes,
it’s brushing your teeth
after three days of nothing.
Sometimes,
it’s answering a text
that says
“Are you okay?”
with something other than
“I’m fine.”

Sometimes,
it’s staying.
Even when your brain
is whispering exit signs
in every direction.

Sometimes,
it's waking up
and naming your pain
without apologizing
for how loud it is.

Because this world
wants you silent.
It wants you numbed,
polished,
palatable.
It wants your struggle
as long as it’s marketable,
as long as it comes
with a punchline.

But you
are not a tragedy.
You
are not a burden.
You
are not too sensitive,
the world is just
too cruel sometimes
to feel the way you do
and still stay soft.

So stay soft anyway.

Stay.

Write poems in the margins.
Cry without disclaimers.
Take your meds like rebellion.
Take naps like protest.
Take up space
like your existence
is not negotiable,
because it isn’t.

You are not alone.
You are not wrong
for how you carry this.
You are not broken,
you are building.

So let them say
“mental illness is invisible.”
You don’t need them to see it
to survive it.

You don’t owe the world
a version of yourself
it can understand.

You just have to keep breathing
even when every breath
feels like a war.

Because even in the dark,
you are still here.
And here
is still
worth everything.