THE FIRST ARCHIVE WAS THE BODY

My body remembered before I did.

It kept the record long after my mind collapsed under the weight of forgetting. It carried the truth in tremors, in aches, in the sudden tightening of breath when a room felt too familiar. It archived what I could not bear to name.

I used to think the shaking meant I was weak. I used to think the flinch meant I was broken. I used to think the panic meant I was failing at being human.

But the truth is simpler, sharper, older:

My body was the first witness. My body was the first archive. My body was the only one who never lied.

It remembered the hands. It remembered the tone of the door closing. It remembered the way danger smelled before I had words for danger. It remembered the betrayal before I understood betrayal.

And when I tried to forget — when I starved it, silenced it, medicated it, apologized for it — it still carried me.

It carried me through rooms I should never have been in. It carried me through nights I thought would swallow me whole. It carried me through every moment I pretended I was fine.

My body was not dramatic. My body was not unstable. My body was not the problem.

My body was the evidence.

Every tremor was testimony. Every ache was a ledger entry. Every breath that caught in my throat was the archive screaming its truth into the dark.

I see that now.

I see the way my body kept me alive when I had no idea how to stay. I see the way it held the memories I could not face. I see the way it refused to let the truth die inside me.

I used to think I was fighting my body. But I was fighting the truth it carried.

Now I return to it — not as an enemy, not as a judge, but as the survivor who finally understands:

THE FIRST ARCHIVE WAS THE BODY.

And I honor it. I honor the tremor. I honor the ache. I honor the breath that once broke under the weight of what I endured.

My body remembers because someone had to.

And now — finally — I remember with it.