The Body Knows First

It didn’t begin in my heart.
It began in my mouth.

My face was turned toward the stars — almost like a prayer — when it happened.

As if something sharp entered there, quietly, without warning, and slid down through my throat. I felt it immediately. The tightness. The inability to swallow. The strange awareness of my own breath becoming too loud. The strange awareness of my own fragility becoming its own kind of magician.

The sensation continued downward.
The sword pierced further.

When it reached my chest, it didn’t stab — it shattered.

Split me in a way that felt violent. More like revelation. Like something that had been sealed for too long finally giving way.

That’s when the tears came.
They burst. Uncontrollably.

My body said something before my words could.

And strangely — the smile.

Not a happy one.
Not relief.

Something else. Something uncontrollable. As if my body was laughing at its own honesty. As if freedom and grief arrived at the exact same moment and neither asked permission to be there.

This part of heartbreak doesn’t get spoken about much.
The light that leaks in through the rupture.
The sense that something false has fallen away, even as something beloved is lost.

It’s unbearable — and true — at the same time.

In those days, I couldn’t explain myself to anyone. My throat wouldn’t allow it. Words felt like they might cut me further if I tried to force them through. So I let my body speak instead.

I noticed how carefully I dressed.

Not purposefully.
Instinctively.

I reached for pieces that didn’t press on my neck. Anything near my throat felt like too much. I needed space there, as if the air itself had become sacred. I couldn’t tolerate seams that demanded, fabrics that insisted, silhouettes that asked me to be coherent.

I wasn’t.

Some mornings I stood still longer than usual.
Not choosing — listening.

There were days I needed weight. Something that reminded me I still had edges. A coat that rested on my shoulders like a hand saying, you’re still here. Other days I needed softness so complete it almost felt like disappearing.

I wore the same things often. Not because I lacked imagination, but because repetition felt merciful. Familiarity reduced decision. Decision required too much language.

Clothing became a quiet agreement between me and myself.

I won’t ask you to be okay today.
I’ll just help you move through the world.

There was dignity in that.

In heartbreak, the body becomes exquisitely honest. It rejects performance. It doesn’t want to be admired or interpreted. It wants to be protected — not hidden, but held.

And somehow, without my naming it, my clothes understood.

They didn’t try to fix me.
They didn’t try to cheer me up.
They stayed.

They witnessed the tears that came suddenly.
The strange smiles that followed.
The moments when pain cracked open into something almost holy.

I think heartbreak breaks us open not only so we can feel pain —
but so we can feel truth again.
A truth that rarely arrives gently.

The freedom inside it is real.
It just doesn’t announce itself kindly.

It arrives tangled with grief.
Breathing beside it.
Waiting its turn.

And slowly — without ceremony — I began to return to myself.

Not the version I could render before.
That one was impossible.

But another one — quieter, less performative, more precise — started to appear in how I dressed. In how I chose. In what I allowed near my skin.

Getting dressed became a ritual of checking in.

Can I be touched here today?
Can I be seen?
Can I be structured — or do I need to soften?

The answers changed daily.

That was okay.

Because clothing, when chosen this way, is not about appearance.
It’s a collaborator. A witness. A language spoken directly to the body when the mouth still can’t form words.

Even now, when I look at certain pieces, I don’t remember how they looked.

I remember how they held me while my heart was learning how to beat again through an opening it never had before.