Your Denial Has a Body Count

“Wounds don’t close just because you decide to look away.” — L.M. Browning

I got good
at smiling through it.
Better at telling the truth
with omissions.
Expert, really,
at looking healed
in public.

But something was leaking.

I could feel it in how quickly I snapped.
How praise made me nauseous.
How silence never felt empty—
just full of things I refused to name.

When people asked how I was,
I said something that rhymed with “fine,”
then swallowed the aftertaste.

The body always remembers.

Even when I pretend I don’t.

“You can’t heal what you pretend doesn’t hurt.”

Most people don’t lie with words. They lie with omission. With their tone. With a smile that doesn’t reach their eyes. The more practiced the act, the more invisible the pain becomes. Not just to others, but to ourselves. That’s the most dangerous part. Not forgetting the wound exists, but convincing yourself it was never real to begin with.

There’s a cost to that kind of self-abandonment. It doesn’t collect all at once. It compounds. Over years. Over choices. Over relationships that feel oddly familiar, because you …