This piece is an exploration of what it means to grow up without room to breathe; in a house full of bodies, objects, noise, and unspoken rules. It’s a story about learning closeness before I ever learned space. About how love can feel like suffocation when your childhood taught you to shrink instead of exist. I return to the fragments of myself I once abandoned; the little girl who didn’t have a corner of the bed, the teenager who walked until the panic left her chest, the woman who craves intimacy but fears being swallowed by it. This is my attempt to press play again. To rebuild the home inside me. To stay this time. To breathe.