This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
The girl I was
learned the language of terror
before she ever learned to spell her name.
A child,
with scraped knees and soft hands,
dragged into a darkness
that was never hers,
forced to carry silence
like a wound she could never show.
She froze.
God, she froze.
Locked in a moment
that carved itself into her bones,
a scream held hostage
behind her teeth.
Shame was the blanket
she was wrapped in,
heavy as chains,
cold as the floor
she lay on.
She thought she caused it.
She thought she deserved it.
She thought the world would shatter
if she spoke
one
true
word.
And so she became a ghost,
a hollowed-out child
wandering the ruins
of her own stolen youth,
alone in a room
no one else could see.
But hear this,
the girl I was
is no longer silent.
She rises
like something forged in fire,
eyes burning with the truth
they tried to bury.
She claws her way out
of the frozen world
she was trapped in,
dragging every piece of herself
back into the light.
I take her hand,
the trembling, furious,
unbreakable hand,
and whisper the words
she needed all along:
It was never your fault.
You were never to blame.
You were never alone.
And together,
fierce, shaking, unstoppable,
we burn down every lie
built to contain us.
The girl I was
survived the unthinkable.
The woman I am
refuses to ever
go back
to the dark.
