A Name for the Pain

They said it out loud this time.

Not a whisper, not a maybe,

but a weight dropping heavy into my lap,

like bricks I didn’t ask for.

And suddenly, it’s real.

It has a name now,

a name I didn’t want to know,

a name that comes with side effects

and risks and warnings

like a storm I’ve been pretending wasn’t on the radar.

I told myself it wasn’t real.

It was just stress.

Just in my head.

Just my imagination stitching threads of discomfort

into something bigger.

But the doctor said it.

The doctor said it.

And now it’s here,

gnawing at the edges of my life,

carving space in a body that already feels

too full of battles I didn’t enlist for.

One more diagnosis,

one more label,

one more thing to grieve.

They say it’s validation,

but it feels like violation.

Because now it’s not just me and my fears.

It’s charts and tests and treatments,

and their voices telling me what I already knew

but didn’t want to hear.

It’s the grief of losing the lie

I told myself—that maybe I was fine,

maybe I was just being dramatic.

But I wasn’t.

I’m not.

This is real.

This is dangerous.

This is the sharp edge of truth,

cutting through the thin skin of denial

I wrapped myself in for so long.

How many times can I do this?

How many times can I let them

hand me another diagnosis

like a letter sealed with bad news,

telling me what’s wrong

when all I want is for something, anything,

to be right?

I try to breathe through it,

but the air feels too thick,

my chest too tight.

Grief is a quiet scream inside me,

mourning the health I never had,

the life that keeps slipping farther away.

It’s an endless funeral for what I could’ve been.

They don’t tell you about the grief,

how it comes in waves,

crashing over you when you least expect it.

How it tastes like salt in your throat

and burns like the tears you don’t want to shed

because crying feels like surrender.

But I’m not just tired.

I’m bone-deep, soul-heavy weary.

Because every new name for the pain

reminds me of all the ones before it,

and all the ones still waiting in the shadows,

ready to pounce.

I want to scream,

but my voice is hoarse

from all the times I’ve whispered to myself:

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay.

It’s never been okay.

-Giusiana