December 6, 2022

By Kelton "KC" Castillo

Younger me,

I want to start with what the world sees, because that’s the easiest mask to

name.

They see a game-day-ready smile.

They see the cheers and the praise,

a polished person, and a leader that isn’t abrasive.

They see speeches and scholarships.

They see the way I remember everyone’s name, how I try to make sure

everyone is ok, and how I’m quote on quote “destined for success”.

But they don’t see the cracks in my mask,

the tears that fall behind it.

How I practiced being “fine”,

while others train to be outstanding.

They love the surface because the surface loves them back.

They love the facade because it makes them feel safe.

So I’ve kept it shiny so they wouldn’t ask questions I wasn’t ready to

answer.

You did that first. You learned the trick.

You learned that crying could be a trap door.

You learned that tears could make the room get louder,

that softness could be leveraged against you,

that your face could finance someone else’s rage.

I wish I could say it started later.

But you remember how early it began.

You remember how language became a weapon and then a mirror;

how a boy can be taught to leave his body,

to carry his breath like contraband;

how you could be punished into silence so completely that silence started

to sound like your name.

Younger me,

I won’t catalog every bruise; this is not an inventory.

Plus the list is so long it can’t be read in a single story. So, let's just not...

What matters is that you learned to vanish while standing upright.

You learned a stillness so practiced it looked like obedience.

You learned to be a good person,

a candle burning from both ends,

pretending it wasn’t melting.

There were other kinds of thefts too.

Hands that felt entitled to your yes, while you cried out no.

Eyes that studied you like a problem to be solved by force.

It happened more than once, and you filed it under “it’s all my fault.”

And maybe it was, which is why you never said a word.

You never told, because who believes a boy who has already been trained

to doubt himself?

Who listens when the evidence is only your words?

So you taught yourself to laugh it off, to fold the memory into muscle.

Pretend it was nothing, until nothing started to feel like you.

Years passed. We got good at surviving.

Survival is a language, and we became fluent.

We learned how to perform competence while bleeding under the costume.

We did the homework, shook the hands, and hit the marks.

We told ourselves, there will be a day to rest, and that day will be when

we’re death.

And although we wanted to rest so bad, we decided to not falter and

continue trying at life.

And then it happened.

That day, I learned that you can only carry so much until it crushes you

down.

You don’t notice when strength turns into survival,

or when survival starts to hurt more than the pain itself.

On that day, every step, heavier than the last.

Every breath felt like my last.

Every tear felt too little too late.

And every “I love you” we said was a call for help.

It was a mild winter, but everything still felt cold.

The air was heavy, and there was barely any snow.

Turned my phone off cause I no longer felt the need to be found.

I walked for two hours, said goodbye at least ten times in my head,

whispering prayers for mercy, asking forgiveness from those I held dear.

Saying words that only God and I will ever hear.

Shedding tears that only God and I would ever see.

Continued to walk, telling myself that this is it.

Convinced myself that this is the only way to find peace, no longer in fear,

just determined to sleep.

I walked, and walked, and walked.

Past the signs, past the lights, past the point of turning back.

Past the pain, past the hope, past the dreams that I once had.

And when I got there, I laid down.

To my surprise, the steel wasn’t cold.

Lying there was actually the warmest I felt in a long time.

Lying down felt like finishing a sentence no one wanted to read.

Bringing a story to an end, not because we wanted to end it,

but because we no longer knew how to keep going.

I closed my eyes and let my thoughts drift away, allowing my body to follow.

Time began to pass so slow,

and yet everything in my mind was going so fast.

I waited, and waited, and waited.

And then it came...

I didn’t see it first; I felt it.

The world trembling beneath me like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

There is a frequency only bodies know, things that we might never

understand.

I woke up physically before the horn woke me up mentally.

And then the body did what the mind couldn’t.

Knees, hands, gravel, a sudden rush.

Standing like a reflex.

They say that in your final moments, you see a light.

But instead of me going towards the light, it was coming towards me.

I found myself lit up, finally, with no place to hide.

The rails shook, the horn got louder, and my end got closer.

However...

The train stopped, inches from me.

The horn, the wind, the shaking, and then silence.

I looked down at my hands, at the ground that hadn’t taken me.

I was still standing.

Still breathing.

Still here.

And for the first time, I didn’t know what to do with being alive.

So I walked to the terminal as if someone had called my name and I,

somehow, still had one.

An officer found me

Not as a revelation, not as a savior,

just a person who said, “Are you Kelton?”

What followed?

A phone call, campus security, paperwork, the incremental bureaucracy of

survival.

The fluorescent script of a hospital night.

A wristband. A room number. A patient ID.

The word “observation” stamped across the hours like a watermark.

There is nothing cinematic about three days inside a system that is

designed to keep you breathing

but not designed to know your story.

There are check-ins and clipboards,

and questions with multiple-choice answers

that don’t include “I learned to stop crying because it wasn’t safe”

or “I am exhausted from being everyone’s miracle”.

There are doors that open when your name is called.

There are doors that stay locked for our “safety”.

There are phone calls after phone calls, retelling the same story.

Having to explain to those you love why you felt so lonely,

having to explain that it’s not their fault,

Trying not to break them while you remain broken.

I sent messages when I could:

“I’m alive”. “I’m being admitted”. “I won’t have my phone”.

To explain an apocalypse in a paragraph is its own kind of violence.

People said they were glad I was okay.

Okay is one of those words that has multiple meanings,

Because although I was “okay”, I wasn’t “okay”.

Then decisions:

Go home early. Take X grades.

Finish later, heal now.

I was not to be alone.

It turns out being alive requires witnesses.

I never had many when it counted.

But I have some now.

Younger me,

I’m writing to tell you what the world won’t:

The train didn’t save us.

Instinct did.

God did, in the subtle way He knows how to work a brake line through a

human.

But the miracle wasn’t just the stopped engine.

The miracle was standing up, and not lying there.

It was the final attempt to be seen.

It was the acceptance of being found.

I want you to know how far we’ve come in the quiet measures:

The first time we cried as adults and didn’t apologize;

the first therapy session where we told the truth out loud, and didn’t fold it

back up;

the phone calls we’ve made to ask for help before we began to crumble;

the papers we turned in late and did not punish ourselves for;

the morning we ate breakfast, and it didn’t feel like a chore;

the walks we’ve taken just to feel our feet belong to us.

I also want the world to know there is more than the scoreboard.

Behind every tidy biography, there is a glossary of untranslatable things.

the wrist that never healed right, although we’ve tried every cream;

the words that still sting, even when you’ve outgrown their cage;

the door you sleep facing, cause you're ready to run away;

the gasp you carry, proof the body remembers before the mind does.

I want them to understand that high-functioning is not the same as healed,

that excellence is sometimes a beautiful way to hide a wound,

that a smile can be both an invitation and a shield.

This is not a redemption arc with a halftime show.

Healing is not choreographed.

Some days I carry the boy; other days the boy carries me.

We trade weight like brothers do.

Cause I am not as strong as I might seem.

And yes, there are still shadows that rehearse old lines.

Some memories knock without warning.

Some nights, a train passes somewhere miles away and my body

remembers.

I am learning to let the sound move through me the way the weather moves

through trees.

Younger me,

There is something else I need to say.

We learned to take orders from pain.

Some voices taught us endings, before things ever began;

Some confused love with control,

discipline with harm,

And faith with fear.

We are learning new instructions,

as bizarre as that might seem.

They are simple and a bit stubborn:

Pray, drink water, call someone, tell the truth, go outside, write, sleep,

wake, eat, breathe.

Repeat as needed.

Every repetition is a prayer no one can take from us.

To the world: if you need a résumé, you’ll find it.

But if you want the real story, it looks like this,

a boy who learned not to cry;

a young man who nearly made that lesson permanent;

a body that chose otherwise;

a life rebuilt not as a monument, but as a practice.

People have thanked me for still being here.

I’m grateful, too.

Grateful like a person standing on a platform while the train rushes through,

feeling wind and force and knowing both can pass without taking you.

Younger me,

I will be honest with you,

this is not the final scene.

There will be harder days again.

And on those days, I’ll remind you: the body knows how to stand.

I used to believe survival meant never breaking.

Now I know it’s the opposite.

I broke, and the breaking let the light learn my name.

To anyone reading who thinks they know me from the bright edges,

there’s more.

There is always more than a photograph can carry.

Look past the frame. Listen past the chant.

If you ask what I am most proud of, it isn’t the recognitions.

It’s the unglamorous, relentless choosing:

to wake, to reach, to tell, to build, to love, to forgive, to be forgiven.

December 6 is a page.

I turn it every morning.

Some days the paper cuts me,

other days it feels soft on my hands.

But every time I turn the page, I remember I’m not through.

Becoming takes time; healing does too.

The world once stopped, but I did not disappear.

And just like that night when time slowed down,

I am still here.

By Kelton "KC" Castillo