Some days, I can’t recognize who I am
A shape carved by their very hands.
No child is born broken,
It is what fate brings later,
That tests if you can survive what comes next.
Love meant to bloom in kindness and care
Withered in impatience, in words
That sliced deeper than any blade could dare.
Their voices echo in the hollow of a heart that once warm,
Now cold, a reminder of what I was never allowed to be,
only what I was molded into.
I learned to argue,
Not to be right,
But because conflict felt like control.
And when their anger raged,
I learned to go quiet,
To shrink beneath the weight of their fury and call it peace.
I found safety in running from what needed to be faced,
Not because I didn’t care,
But because standing still felt like waiting for a blow.
I mistook escape for freedom,
And I called my absence healing.
And now I carry it all,
The silence, the sparks, the running.
Not as excuses,
But as evidence of the person I was trying so hard to survive.