to be written
and rewritten
once more
about someone like you.
The pages are too full
and the lines have
no more room
for the same old story.
I must turn the page.
and start anew.
I must start
a new story
about someone new.
Your heart won’t heal
as long as it stays
in the same place where
pain entered it.
There is fear in the unknown.
But fear
does not mean
settling.
It does not mean stopping.
Your fears are not meant
to keep you in fear.
They are meant
to keep you moving.
Your fears are meant
to make you rise.
Let them judge you.
They will live with their
judgment,
and you will live
with your truth.
It was not those I loved
who hurt me the most
but those I trusted.
There is a difference.
You are not defined by
who respects you but
by who you respect.
You are not
the pain that broke you.
You are who it made you become.
They will curse the day
that they chose to deny
your story.
If they are talking about you behind your back, shame on them. Let them talk. If someone spends their time talking about you negatively, what does that say about them?
If they blame you for what you went through, let them blame you. You know what happened to you. If they blame you for burning in a fire someone put you through, that speaks of them, not of you. Instead of helping you heal, they are telling you that your soul’s burning was your own fault. You don’t need people like that in your life.
If they see you screaming for help and pretend not to hear, let them turn away. Their refusal to act does not mean that you don’t have a voice. It means that they are in denial of the effort they need to make to cause change.
Those who don’t have the courage to acknowledge that you’ve been wronged are complicit in your harm. They are bystanders. Don’t take that lightly. Anyone who stays quiet during your time of need either does not care about you, is too afraid to show you their support, or doesn’t believe you. And you don’t need to think of any of those people during your time of struggle. Continue to care about them if you do; show them support when they need it; and believe them when they speak their truth. Because that is who you are. But don’t let their lack of support make you feel unworthy. Their stances show their character, not yours.
Last but not least, remember that staying true to yourself is the most important thing. Don’t allow gossip, hypocrisy, misogyny, or bias to bring you down. You are way ahead of those things. And you are standing by the truth by standing up against them. Whoever you are and wherever you are—keep going. Keep fighting. Keep being a warrior. Do not give up.
From the ashes,
I rose
and I stitched the pieces
of my soul
back together
with gold.
My wings are no longer broken.
My wings are hurting,
but they are healing.
There are days when
pain wakes up with you.
Welcome it.
Strength does not mean
that you have no struggle
or that you are completely
at peace
with a hurtful past.
It means that you
don’t allow the past
to make you
shrink
and fall again.
If they can’t love
the broken pieces of you,
they won’t be able to love
the whole you.
Your pieces make you—
broken or back together.
I sometimes feel that
I can’t live with myself
because of what you did
to me
and got away with.
Then I remember:
How could you
live with yourself
knowing what you did
to me?
I will not live with your guilt.
I will not carry your weight.
It is yours to carry.
You hit me with
your pain
and I turn it into
poetry.
You look at me and wonder
how I can be so strong while
I am fighting wars inside.
Some days I win.
Some days I lose.
But both days, I smile.
How dare you tell me
that I am only hurt
because you no longer want me.
You don’t put a knife
in someone’s heart and twist
and twist
and twist
then tell them that
that they’re only hurt
because you are no longer
twisting.
No one has the right to judge the pain inside of your heart. They are not the ones who sit by your bedside when you cry yourself to sleep at night. They are not the ones who carry the mountains on your shoulders as you get through the day. They are not the ones who are wondering where your happiness went. They are not the ones aching to smile again. No one should ever judge a pain they’ve never felt. Those who love you don’t judge you. They listen to you. They understand you. And they love the pain out of you. They don’t try to beat the pain out of you by denying you the right to feel it. So don’t feel ashamed that you’re in pain just because someone makes you feel that you have no right to feel it.
Don’t say
“I don’t have a choice.”
Don’t say
“I don’t have a voice.”
Stand up for yourself.
I will be anything but
silenced.
If the voice inside your head
is not yours,
shut it up and
kick it out.
The past is behind you
for a reason.
Don’t go back to it
hoping that it will change.
No one can change history.
It already happened.
No one can make a day that ended
start again.
If you try to change the past,
it will only break you again.
You cannot change
a beginning
that began in the past.
You can end it
and start a new beginning
that begins now.
If you speak and
they don’t like what you have to say,
they will try to silence you.
Don’t lose hope.
Your pain will be
seen
and felt.
Your voice will be
heard
and echoed.
The world has so much goodness
in its heart for you.
And it will
fall into you.
Be patient.
We don’t relive our pain
because we
want to
but because it took
parts of us
that we can never get back.
We are grieving while
healing.
I told you once:
“I’d hate to write a heartbreak poem
about you one day.”
You got angry and said:
“That would never happen.
I already promised you
that I will never walk away.”
But here I am,
writing pages and chapters
to cleanse my soul of the pain
that you promised to protect me from.
Just because your love for me
was not real,
I will not deny my love for you.
I am proud to have a heart
that loves sincerely
and a soul that smiled innocently
for every poem you wrote me.
Even though your words
turned out to be
just words,
I thank you
for allowing me to feel
how much love my heart could give.
I thank you
for showing me
that my heart could survive
one more break.
Thank you.
It’s okay to never be okay
with what happened to you.
Just remember that
not being okay with it
does not mean that you
can’t move
past it.
It might never stop never being okay,
but you will be okay.
You tried to silence me
by putting my own hands over
my mouth.
My hands melted into my face,
and all of my words transformed
into action.
Thank you.
Don’t blame yourself
for their
unwillingness
to put in the effort
to fix their mistakes.
I know you’re tired,
but you have to keep going.
Remember where you want to be.
Remember who you want to be.
Don’t allow yourself to give up.
It may be an option,
but don’t you choose it.
You deserve more.
Don’t lose hope.
The truth always wins.
You have every right to feel your pain.
You have every right to feel unheard
when they don’t listen.
You have every right to bleed,
to grieve,
every time they stab you.
Do not allow their belittling of
your pain
to make you
ashamed
of how you feel.
Don’t live your life in fear
of what they said
or what they’ll say
or what they might say.
Live your truth,
and be true to yourself.
They will never be able to
feel
how much they hurt you
even if you scream it
into their hearts.
If they were able to feel as you do,
they would not have hurt you,
so
stop crumbling in front of them.
They will not pick up the pieces of
you.
You have to do that.
The first time I saw you in a coffee shop
after you denied the whole story
of us,
you got up and left
the moment you saw me.
That hurt so much.
And you will never know because
I will never tell you.
It reminded me of you
letting go.
It reminded me of you
walking away.
I cried, not because I missed you
but because I hate that I had to see you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I hate you.
That is what I really want to say.
I’ve tried so hard not to,
but
I have to.
I hate you.
How did it feel
to have someone like me
love you?
Did my innocence remind you
of what you had before
you turned into the devil
that you are now?
Did the spark in my eyes
give you a fire
to put out?
Did the softness of my skin
soothe the thorns on yours?
Did the warmth of my heart
melt the coldness of yours?
Well,
here is the strength of my vulnerability
exposing the weakness of your manipulation.
Excuse me, sir.
I see you looking in the wrong place.
You look at my face
as if there is nothing to see
other than
the color of my eyes,
the fairness of my skin,
or the adventures that my body might take you on.
You look at my body
as if there is nothing to see
other than
the curves of mountains and valleys,
as if my body is a land for you
to journey,
to discover,
to occupy.
Excuse me, sir.
My body is not a place for your conquest.
Don’t get me wrong—
I am a mystery.
I am a masterpiece.
I carry with my body
I have, carved, on my body
streets that you want me to hide
because you see them as scars.
I have, built, in my eyes,
blazing fires that you want to put out
because you are afraid
to get burned.
And if you dare to venture, sir,
beyond the color of my eyes,
beyond the touch of my skin,
beyond the places on my body
that you want to own,
you will find oceans
that you will drown in
if you are not ready to sail.
You will find mountains of wisdom
that I have inherited from every woman, every mother, every girl on this earth.
If you dare to venture beyond my skin,
you will find skies filled with love and compassion that
centuries of women have instilled within me.
The problem, sir,
is that you want to own parts of me
instead of honor the depths of me.
But what you should know, sir,
is that only
I
own
the map.
I am not a land for you to occupy.
I am not a ship for you to steer.
I am not a fire for you to contain.
I am not a property for you to put a price on.
Whether I am young, old, or in-between,
who I am and what I give to this world
is not defined by the canvas that your eyes
paint my body on.
You see, sir, the way that you see me
says a lot more about you
than it says about me.
The way that you devalue
the treasures in me
says a lot more about you
than it says about me.
The way that you define the beauty of me
with the pleasure that you get
out of me
says a lot more about you
than it says about me.
I am beautiful,
not because of my face,
not because of my body.
I am beautiful because of the heart
contained in this body.
I am beautiful because of the mind
controlling this body.
So if you must grab me by something,
let it be my heart.
It is what makes the world
a compassionate place.
If you must grab me by something,
let it be my mind.
It is what spreads wisdom in this world
like wildfire.
And finally, sir,
I must ask you:
If the woman in me
sees the human in you,
why can’t the man in you
see the human in me?
For all the times
you saw me and
pretended not to see me or
didn’t want to be seen with me:
A day will come
when I will no longer
want to be seen by you or
seen around you.
It will be you
waving at me
from across the street
and it will be me
turning in the other direction.
I want you to leave
my place of peace
as you’ve left me in
your place of turmoil.
When you are tempted
to wish them pain,
remember how it felt
when they hurt you.
Never wish them pain.
That’s not who you are.
If they caused you pain,
they must have pain inside.
Wish them healing.
That’s what they need.
It’s sad how
you disappoint those
who let you down
when you speak of how
they let you down.