The Unseen Wound

Title: The Unseen Wound

There is a wound that no one sees, carved not by a blade but by silence, by the weight of unspoken things. It lies deep beneath the surface, nestled in a place where light does not reach. It is not the kind of wound that bleeds, but it leaves a trail of frost wherever it touches. A cold that spreads quietly, unnoticed, until one day the body shudders, as if waking from a long, forgotten dream, and realizes it has been frozen in place all this time.

The man walks through the world, his face a calm mask, his footsteps measured, yet with each step, the wound tugs--gentle at first, then relentless. It presses upon him in ways no one can understand, a weight that does not show in his hands or his shoulders, but in his eyes, which carry the quiet weight of unspoken words.

He smiles when he should, he laughs when it's expected, but the wound never allows him to forget it is there. It is in the way his breath catches when a certain memory drifts by, or how his chest tightens when someone asks a question that cuts too close. It whispers in the dead of night, when the world is asleep, and yet its voice is so loud he cannot silence it.

He has learned to carry it like a shadow, the wound hidden beneath the skin of his life. He's built walls around it, tall and cold, hoping that no one will notice the cracks starting to appear in the mortar. But cracks, like wounds, cannot be hidden forever. They spread, inch by inch, until they consume everything--until the walls crumble, and the wound stands exposed, raw and trembling.

It is in the moments when he allows himself to feel the most--those quiet, fleeting moments of reflection--that the wound makes itself known. It rises up like smoke from a fire long thought extinguished, curling around his heart with the weight of forgotten grief. It is then that he remembers how long he has been carrying it, how many years have passed with him refusing to acknowledge its presence. How many times he has stepped around it, hoping it would disappear, only for it to grow deeper, darker.

In the light of day, no one can see it. It is a wound that does not belong to the body, but to the soul. It is the wound of all the things he has never said, the things he has never allowed himself to feel, the things he has buried beneath layers of pride, of fear, of shame. And though it remains unseen, it shapes everything, casting shadows where there should be light, cold where there should be warmth.

He wishes he could reach inside, tear it out, and lay it bare to the world. But there is a terror in that. What if it never heals? What if, in trying to remove it, he destroys everything he has built? What if the wound is all that remains?

So he continues, step by step, pretending it is not there, until the weight becomes unbearable, until the day comes when he will have to face it--not as a shadow in the corner of his mind, but as the very thing that defines him.

Until then, he walks with the wound, and the wound walks with him.