The First Morning I Didn’t Cry

Jonathan Valania

The sun rose like it always had,

but this time I didn’t hate it for doing so.

No one was in the hallway.

No footsteps.

No slammed doors.

Just silence—

and not the kind that comes before impact.


I touched the morning—

not as a threat,

but as something I could stay inside.


There was no apology waiting to be demanded.

No empty promises folded into tired hands.

No tension hiding in the kitchen light.


Just me,

and the strange echo of stillness

where your voice used to live.


And I didn’t cry.


Not because I was healed.

Not because I had forgiven you.

But because I had nothing left

to beg for.


No more timelines to rewrite.

No more pieces of myself

to hand over in exchange for a quieter night.

I had already burned the apology I would never receive.

Buried the future that would never come.


I thought I was broken.

Felt numb, like something sacred had gone missing.


But I wasn't broken.

I was just… done.


That morning,

I put the cup down,

breathed in,

and realized I didn’t owe pain anything anymore.


And that silence—

that unremarkable silence—

was the softest thing

I’d ever survived.

 

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Letters I'll Never Send

It started with evidence—court documents, voicemails, and text messages meant to prove what was done behind closed doors. But somewhere in the quiet aftermath, it became something else. A record. A release. A slow, sacred beginning.

Letters I’ll Never Send is a poetry and prose collection drawn from the wreckage of an abusive relationship. These pages hold what was never safe to say out loud—fury, sorrow, confusion, love twisted by fear. It’s not a story wrapped in resolution. It’s what healing sounds like when you’re still in the middle.

The print edition includes exclusive poems and reflections not found online. A portion of proceeds goes toward supporting survivors of domestic abuse.

This book isn’t just for the ones who escaped.

It’s for anyone learning how to live after.