Who Told You

Because someone told them

that if they don't get what they want
they get to piss over your dreams…
have tantrums that burst from all seams…
and it remains —
only shadows upon your once unblemished face.
Dark fingerprints where light used to live.
Bruises that never quite purple, never quite fade.
Just gray.
Just there.
Just always.

Because someone told them

that if they don't get what they want
they can pick off everything that made you…
make future promises that never come true…
string you along like prayer beads…
each one a lie you fingered into belief…
each one a hope you swallowed whole…
until your throat closed around the shape of waiting.

Because someone told them…
and someone told those someones…
and someone before that whispered it like gospel…
like inheritance…
like birthright…

that a woman's dreams are kindling,
that her hope is the match,
that her trauma is the map
to where she's most flammable.

Who told you?

Who taught you to study us like prey?
To catalog our wounds and call it courtship?
To learn the exact frequency of our breaking
and tune your voice to match it?

Who told you

that the white picket fence
could be sharpened into spears?
That safety could be a lure?
That home could be the trap itself?

You learned this.
Someone taught you
that a woman who's already survived fire
will run toward any promise of water…
even if it's gasoline…
even if you're holding the match behind your back…
smiling.

You learned to speak our language of longing.
To mouth the words we've been whispering to ourselves
since we were girls:
Safe. Steady. Home. Finally. Rest.

You learned to wear those words like a costume…
to perform stability…
to audition for the role of refuge…
knowing — knowing —
that we've been wandering so long
we'd mistake any shelter for salvation.

The bait was so clever
we never would have known.
How could we?
When you studied us like scripture…
memorized our scars like love poems…
traced our fault lines with such tender fingers…
we thought you were trying to heal them…
not widen them…
not build your house directly on top of the fracture
and wait for the earth to swallow us whole.

How could we have known
when you promised us the dream
we'd been clutching since our traumatic beginnings?
When you offered us the other side —
that black, calm water…
that quiet we'd been flying toward our whole lives…
our wings already singed…
our breath already smoke.

We wanted to believe.
God, we wanted to believe
that someone could see us shaking
and not mistake it for an invitation…
that someone could witness our survival
and not see it as a challenge to break us further.

But you did.
You saw.
You knew exactly what you were doing.

Now I live in the architecture of your deception.
These walls built from my own hopes.
This roof made of promises you never meant.
These windows that only show me
versions of myself I don't recognize.

I cannot cry
because tears would be evidence…
would be weakness…
would give you something else to use against me.
So I swallow them.
Let them pool in my chest.
Let them drown me from the inside
where you can't see…
where you can't smile.

I cannot speak the truth
because the truth is a wild thing…
and if I let it out
it might burn everything down —
including me…
including the small, shaking parts of me
that still believe I deserved this somehow…
that still think I should have known better…
that still carry your voice like a parasite
telling me this is love…
this is what I asked for…
this is all I'm worth.

The dread lives in every breath.
Becomes every breath.
Is every breath.

Inhale: You're still here.
Exhale: You're still trapped.
Inhale: Maybe tonight.
Exhale: Maybe never.

Every night I pray for parole…
bargain with the darkness…
promise I'll be better, quieter, smaller…
promise I'll disappear if that's what it takes…
just let me out…
just let me breathe…
just let me wake up as someone
who never met you.

Every morning I face my judgment:
Still here.
Still breathing.
Still trapped in this body
that remembers your hands…
still living in this mind
that replays your words…
still carrying this heart
that you hollowed out
and filled with your poison
and called it love.

The prison isn't the house.
Isn't the relationship.
Isn't even you.
The prison is me.
My own skin.
My own consciousness.
My own stubborn, stupid refusal to stop existing.

Every breath is a sentence.
Every heartbeat is another day added to my time.
Every morning is the judge saying:
Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.

But then—

I see you.
Really see you.
I see the demon gazing upon me
in those dark pools of eyes…
those black mirrors
where my face used to reflect back whole…
now fractured into a thousand versions of your cruelty.

And I am done.
Done.

I call you out —
not to you
(because you stopped listening the moment you started performing)
but to the Earth…
to the sky…
to the loud and the quiet…
to the known and unknown…
to every woman who's been here before me…
to every woman who'll come after…
to the universe itself: