Burden

What you carried that no one saw you carrying.

The responsibility that was yours because no one else was going to take it.

A weight that accumulated slowly enough that you stopped noticing it.

When you bore the consequences of someone else choices.

The labor of keeping something alive that others took for granted.

When the burden was also, somehow, the thing that organized your life.

What you were responsible for that could not be set down.

The weight of knowing things that you could not share.

A role that required you to absorb difficulty on behalf of others.

When the care you provided was invisible to those who benefited from it.

The obligation that outlasted the circumstances that created it.

When you carried grief, worry, or responsibility into every room.

A burden inherited rather than chosen, that you chose to keep anyway.

The emotional weight of being the one who held things together.

When you bore the burden silently because asking for help felt impossible.

The weight of the expectation of others who depended on you entirely.

What you could not put down without something falling apart.

When the burden was also an expression of love, even if it hurt.

The knowledge that you were going to have to carry this for a long time.

A burden that had become so familiar it no longer felt like one.