VULNERABLE

Words and art by Mahimma Jain

There are days when I want to close the window inside me, to seal it shut against the hurt I have known and the doubts that grew inside me because of it. But I leave it open. I keep the light alive. Being a woman means carrying a softness the world keeps trying to harden, and choosing to protect it anyway. Vulnerability is not what weakens me. It is what makes me endure. It is my proof that even when the breaks, the silences, and the betrayals live both outside me and within me, I still choose to believe in connection. I still choose to believe in myself.