I Am the Proof

I don't own anyone grace

for the chapters they never read.

They weren't there

when my voice shook in locked bathrooms,

when I stitched my own heart shut

with trembling hands

because I knew no one else

would hold it steady.

They weren't there 

when I smiled too long at men with control in their

tone,

when I played it safe,

stayed small,

tucked my thunder behind my teeth

because I was told

that what good women do.

But I remember.

I remember the nights

when I whispered "just survive? into my own pillow,

and the days I showed up anyway,

with raw knuckles

and a spine straighter than the lies told about me.

I have come

from ashes,

from spit-shined trauma,

from bloodlines that weren't written in textbooks

but in bruises and brilliance.

I am the wrong combination

for anyone who needs me quiet to love me.

Too raw.

Too real.

Too uncomfortable

to be anyone's lesson

or regret.

I have held my own ruin

and turned it into rhythm.

I've walked away from hands that felt like home

because they stopped feeling safe.

I have cried

and kept walking.

I have bled

and kept giving.

But I have never

gone back to being less

just to be held.

This wholeness?

It's not pretty.

It's not polished.

It's stitched together

with threads no one sees

and rage no on dared to name beautiful.

But it is mine.

And I wear it

not as an apology

but as a crown carved from the wreckage.

I do not need to be softened.

I do not need to be understood.

I only need to be true.

And this....

this is the truth of me.

The raw, red truth.

Not waiting.

Not performing.

Just alive.

Unapologetically, 

me.