I did not ask for the breaking.
I did not ask for the nights that swallowed my voice,
for the rooms that remembered the screams I could not recall,
for the quiet that was not peace,
but pressure.
But here I am.
Still.

They say, amor fati.
Love your fate.
Not tolerate. Not endure.
Love it.

Tell me—how do you love the pain that pulled you under?
How do you love the hands that dropped you
and called it discipline?
How do you love the way your own body
turned battlefield
without your consent?

This is not a fairy tale.
This is not a TED Talk.
This is not a clean, tidy slogan
on a mug or a fridge magnet.
This is war paint
in the mirror.

Amor fati is what you do
when the apology never comes.
When the diagnosis hits like a brick
but you name it truth.
When the world says “You should be over it by now”
and you say,
“No. But I am with it.”
Every crooked corner.
Every sharp edge.

I do not love what broke me.
I love what I became
when I refused to stay shattered.

Love it when your breath feels borrowed.
Love it when the grief sets the table
and shows up early.
Love it when the mirror says “liar”
and you say “not today.”

Love it like
it is your only home—
because it is.

I love the broken mornings
when I make my bed anyway.
I love the sound of my voice
even when it shakes.
I love the ritual—
the candle, the journal, the stone in my pocket—
not because they fix it,
but because they remind me
this pain
is mine to shape.

They told me love was passive.
That acceptance meant silence.
But no.
Amor fati is not silence.
It is sovereignty.
It is the anthem of the unvanquished.

I speak to the mirror now.
I say: “I love you. Not in spite of what happened.
But because you stayed.”

I mark my survival
not in years,
but in small revolutions:
The tear I let fall.
The breath I stayed with.
The phone call I made when shame said, “Shut up.”
The laugh I did not think I had left.

Do not tell me I should have healed faster.
Do not tell me I should let it go.
I let it in.
That is the difference.
I made it sit down and explain itself.
And then I wrote its name on my wrist
so I would never forget who I have outlived.

I am not a mistake.
I am not the things done to me.
I am not the broken bone
or the empty room
or the voice that once begged quietly to be erased.

I am the echo that remains.
I am the fire that stayed lit.
I am the choice that keeps choosing.
I am becoming.

This is how I love my fate:
I write it into poems.
I speak it into existence.
I trace its wounds with my own fingers
and call it sacred.

I give the grief 15 minutes,
and then I walk back into the world
with open hands.

I do not erase the chapters.
I underline them.
And I let them bleed
into something that grows.

Amor fati
is not what they told me.
It is not sainthood.
It is not surrender.

It is this:
To live fully,
even after.
To build joy
next to the scar.
To carry the story
and say:

This too
belongs to me.
And I
love it
anyway.