I was born where no child should be born
into hands that taught me pain
before I ever knew the shape of kindness.
I learned too early
that a body could be taken,
that a voice could be silenced,
that fear could become
the first language of childhood.
They hurt me.
Again and again,
until surviving
was all I knew how to do.
And somehow,
I survived.
I survived the hands.
I survived the nights.
I survived the memories
that followed me out of them.
I survived the days
the pain became so heavy
I turned it against myself
when I tried to erase myself
from a life that had never
given me permission to live.
Even then,
I survived.
Not untouched.
Not unbroken.
Not whole.
There are pieces of me
I am still searching for,
pieces they convinced me
were never mine to keep.
But they were wrong.
Because I am still here.
Not because it didn’t hurt.
Not because I was stronger
than every terrible thing.
I am here because
some small, stubborn part of me
kept whispering:
stay.
So I stayed.
I am not the child
they tried to destroy.
I am not the pain
they left behind.
I am not the things
they did to me.
I am what remained
when everything else was taken:
a heartbeat,
a breath,
a scarred and stubborn soul
that still reaches toward tomorrow.
Maybe I will never be whole
in the way I once imagined.
But whole
is not the requirement for living.
I can be wounded
and still be worthy.
Broken
and still be beautiful.
Changed
and still be me.
They took years from me.
They took pieces of me.
They taught me to fear
my own existence.
But they did not get
the ending.
I did.
And my ending
is not an ending at all.
I survived.
I am surviving.
I am still here.
And so are you.