Content Warnings: medical trauma and social isolation
I used to apologize for the architecture of my cells,
the way they forgot their original blueprint,
built bridges where there should be rivers,
locked doors that once stood open.
My grandmother called it being delicate.
The doctors called it degenerative.
I called it the thief in the night
until I learned that thieves take,
but this—this was teaching me
what remains when everything else
is stripped away.
There is a particular loneliness
to being unreliable in a world
that worships consistency.
The canceled plans. The friends
who drifted like smoke
because my presence came
with too many footnotes.
I learned to count my worth
in the days I could stand
without the room spinning,
as if value were a currency
I had to earn through endurance.
But here is what they don’t tell you
about the breaking:
The body becomes a cartographer
of its own survival.
I know the precise moment
when pain will crest—
can read the barometric pressure
of my own blood,
predict storms before the sky
even darkens.
This is not weakness.
This is meteorology of the self.
I have rebuilt my life
around the rhythm of limitation
the way water shapes stone—
not through force,
but through persistence,
through finding the path
that already exists
and making it wider.
My fight looks like
learning to ask for help
without shame attached.
Like celebrating the small
victories: a shower taken,
a meal cooked, a sentence
finished before the fog rolls in.
Like refusing to let my story
be written only in medical files
and symptom checklists.
There are badges here,
if you know how to look.
The scar tissue that maps
where I refused to surrender.
The calluses on my heart
from holding on too tight
to hope, even when
it cut my palms.
I am not despite this body.
I am because of it—
forged in the crucible
of adaptation,
alloyed with a strength
that doesn’t announce itself
with flexed muscle
but with quiet, stubborn
continuation.
The hand I was dealt
was not a bad one.
It was a different game entirely,
and I am learning
to play it brilliantly,
to find the winning moves
no one else can see,
to turn what was meant
to break me
into the very thing
that makes me
unbreakable.
Notes From the Judge
This is such a strong piece. I love how it immediately dives in with striking language. It told a story that worked effectively for its genre (a poem). I loved how this piece used figurative language and described the little details that mean so much when one’s disabled. It’s clear the poet is very talented through her effective use of enjambment and metaphors.
Pratibha Kumari (she/her) is a writer hailing from Bhojpur, Bihar, India. She specializes in poetry and flash fiction, crafting vivid, emotive pieces that often reflect the textures of life in her native region. Through her condensed and evocative style, she explores themes of identity, memory, and resilience.