From Survival to Purpose: A Poem on Healing, Transformation, and Spiritual Awakening

By Hunter Grimm

What I've learned
in the quiet storm
of recovery,
is that healing doesn't beg—
it demands.

It called me
through the smoke of Adderall,
the haze of weed,
the grip of every false escape.
And still,
the help was always there—
but I had to reach.

I was trapped,
not just in habits,
but in thoughts—
stories I believed
that turned pain into permanence.

But then I saw
the sacred thread—
the value in connection,
the lifeline in community.
That’s when the shift began.

I couldn’t keep hoping
truth would arrive
on someone else’s breath.
It was mine to speak.

When I stopped
looking outside,
and faced the mirror—
my life softened.

I stopped running,
not because it was easy,
but because I was tired
of bleeding from my own blade.
I owned my suffering
and found power in that ownership.

To heal,
I had to stop avoiding pain—
and start alchemizing it.

So I burned.
I turned this fire
in my soul
into purpose.