I’m Proud Of You You Stubborn Shit
You roll your eyes when they call you strong
say they only see the highlights
not the nights you nearly tapped out
Point at the laundry pile, the unanswered texts
the panic, the pills, the days you barely crawl about
You say “I don’t deserve praise for surviving
I just kept waking up ’cause I was too scared to leave
” Then laugh like it’s funny
like staying in a ring that keeps punching isn’t the hardest thing to believe.
You talk about your history like a police report
just facts, no adjectives, no softness in the file
Leave out the part where you were ten
holding a screaming household together with cartoons for a while
Leave out moving out with forty dollars in a bag
staying when everyone else walked away
You call it normal, nothing special
say anybody would have done the same
but that’s a lie today.
You hand other people medals for getting out of bed when their hearts hurt
Talk to them like survivors
then treat your own existence like a clerical error
just a fraud in a shirt
I want to grab your shoulders and tilt your face toward the mirror until you see the dirt and the worth.
I am proud of you, you stubborn shit
for dragging your body into daylight when it begged to stay cold
For every panic spike you rode out without burning your life down
for every secret you finally told
You don’t feel like a warrior in pajamas eating cereal over the sink
but that’s how real bravery un-folds, I am proud of you
you stubborn shit
and I am going to keep saying it until your inner critic folds.
You whisper sometimes that you thought you’d be dead by now
not cinematic, just gone, Thought the weight would win
the bottle, the razor, the highway, some quiet con
Yet here you are, annoyed, hungry
ranting about rent and plot holes in TV shows
Filling my messages with memes and checking on me even when your own mood gets low.
You act like your default setting is failure
like those near misses don’t count because you lived
Like the only stories worthy of pride are building empires
not just choosing to for-give
But there is a version of you in a timeline that ended years ago
and you outran them, you out-lived.
I am proud of you, you stubborn shit
for clawing through years you never thought you’d see
For learning to say no, for choosing therapy, meds, art
walks, whatever kept you free
For looking at the void and saying “not today
I have dumb jokes to tell and people who need me
” I am proud of you, you stubborn shit
and you do not have to earn that with productiv-ity.
One day maybe you will feel it in your bones
not just hear it on a glowing screen
You’ll look back and want to hug the wreck you were
not spit on them for not staying clean, Until then
borrow my eyes
let my rude little heart be the judge of what your survival means
You aren’t just existing
you are building something fierce in the spaces in be-tween.
I am proud of you, you stubborn shit
not for being perfect, not for pretending it is fine
But for being honest when it hurts
for reaching out when you could have shut down
choosing your side of the line, You can roll your eyes
but that does not cancel the fact that your resilience knocks me flat every time
I am proud of you, you stubborn shit
and I am not taking that back, not now
not down the line.
Next time your brain hisses you have not done enough to deserve the air
Remember some idiot out here loves you
thinks the sun shines a little kinder when you are there
And is proud of you, you stubborn shit, I swear.