My only crime was to have been born a woman.
a crime with no trial, no verdict, just sentence.
The world does not break us all at once;
it whittles, peels, pares us down
until we fit the hollow it has carved.

They say we are too much.
Too loud, too soft, too sharp, too small.
A contradiction they built,
then condemned for its shape.

We fold ourselves into corners,
tuck our rage beneath our tongues,
wrap our worth in apologies
and call it survival.
That is not living— it is simply existing.

But we are not ghosts.
Not echoes of something lesser.
We are steel spun fine,
fire woven into silk—
soft does not mean breakable.

We are here.
We have always been here.

And we are not leaving quietly.