Allow Me to Introduce Myself

Allow me to introduce myself—
not as I appear,
but as I have endured.

I was not raised in gentleness.
I was raised in fracture.

In houses where silence meant survival.
In rooms where love was a language
spoken incorrectly.
In hands that held
and hands that let go.

I have been renamed
like property.
Like something misplaced
and found again
without apology.

I have walked through systems
built to swallow girls whole.
I have stood in kitchens
where my absence was easier than my truth.
I have smiled at tables
while grief chewed through my ribs.

You speak of darkness
as if it is metaphor.

I have slept beside it.
I have worn it.
I have learned its breathing patterns
so I would not startle it into violence.

But understand this—

Darkness did not make me fragile.
It made me precise.

I listen before I move.
I measure before I strike.
I do not waste my energy
on things that cannot survive winter.

The old earth hums beneath my feet.
It reminds me:
roots grow deeper
after fire.

I have buried versions of myself
with my own hands.
I have stood over their graves
and thanked them
for keeping me alive long enough
to become this.

Hope is not soft in me.
It is stubborn.
It is the ember I refused to cough out
even when smoke filled my lungs.

It is the decision
to build on land that once exiled me.
To speak in rooms
that once dismissed me.
To live fully
in a body that was once only armor.

You will not find a fairytale here.

You will find a woman
who has survived her own erasure.
Who carries the scent of cedar and smoke.
Who knows how to track her way home
even in unfamiliar terrain.

So when I say
allow me to introduce myself—

Understand.

I am not who they tried to make me.
I am not who left.
I am not who was renamed.

I am the one who stayed.
The one who learned.
The one who returned
with teeth.