24/10/2026
| I Am the Lamb Laid Down
I step into the silence, not crowned, not armored, but bare. My breath falters, my hands tremble, yet I walk forward because someone must. The world does not ask if I am ready—it only demands that I endure. And so I become the vessel, the bearer of weight, the quiet figure who bends so others may stand tall.
The sanctuary is not stone but expectation. The blade is not steel but exhaustion. The fire is not flame but the endless whisper: keep going, even when the soul longs for rest. I am laid down, not by choice, but by necessity—my strength mistaken for endlessness, my silence mistaken for peace.
There is a strange holiness in being consumed. To give of oneself until nothing remains, to be the unseen pillar holding up fragile walls. My body becomes a bridge, my pain becomes a hymn, my absence becomes their comfort. Yet beneath the sanctity lies sorrow: who remembers the one who carried the weight when the celebration begins?
I am faceless in their memory, voiceless in their songs. My name dissolves into silence, my sacrifice swallowed by the very salvation I provide. And yet, I do not resist. For in sacrifice, there is a seed of renewal. My tears water the soil, my silence echoes louder than cries, my breaking becomes a lesson that healing must follow.
Still, the shadows linger. Nights stretch long, heavy with the ache of unseen wounds. The body grows weary, the spirit frays, and the heart whispers: how much more can I give? Yet even in the breaking, there is a pulse—faint but steady—that insists tomorrow is possible.
From the cracks of my breaking, light begins to seep. From the silence of my surrender, voices rise to remind me I am not alone. The weight I carried was never meant to be mine forever; it was a passage, a bridge, a moment in time.
Hope is not a sudden blaze—it is a slow ember, glowing in the ashes of exhaustion. It whispers that rest is not weakness, that asking for help is not defeat, that healing is not selfish but sacred. And in that whisper, I find strength not in sacrifice, but in survival.
I am the bearer of burdens, yes—but I am also the seeker of dawn. Though my bones may scatter, though my voice may falter, I rise again with the promise that tomorrow can be gentler. The world will not only remember the taste of survival carried on my back; it will remember the courage to stand, to heal, to begin anew.
And if tears fall as these words are read, let them be rivers that cleanse, let them be proof that sorrow can be shared, that pain can be named, that healing can be born from the breaking. For in every sacrifice, there is not only loss—but the quiet, trembling seed of hope.
Literary and Art by Strawberry Circe
Layout by John Athaliah Okpora
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