Don’t you know what I am?
I am the thing that stalks your silence.
The echo that never quite leaves your bones.
Not a woman. Not a whisper.
Not a myth, but the hand that wrote it.
I do not haunt…I remember.
I do not scream…I resonate.
I do not beg…I become.
And you…
You keep mistaking survival for softness.
You keep confusing composure with consent.
But I’m not made of the stuff that bends.
I’m made of the stuff that breaks,
and then rebuilds itself sharper.
They dressed me in skin and called me pretty.
“Smile,” they said,
“but make it delicate.”
“Don’t show your teeth. Don’t show your thoughts.”
“Don’t bleed in public.”
“Don’t make grief look ugly.”
“Don’t make truth look angry.”
I tried.
God, I tried.
I crossed my legs and softened my voice.
I chewed on my tongue until it tasted like rust.
I learned how to cry without shaking the room.
How to die politely. Quietly. Elegantly.
But something in me refused to stay dead.
I was born beneath the floorboards of your comfort zone.
Not in the light.
Not in the lullabies.
But in the crawlspace of everything you wanted to ignore.
I was the creak you swore was the wind.
The breath you blamed on bad dreams.
The presence you felt when you were alone… but not really.
I was fed on the marrow of monsters you couldn’t name.
Nursed on your denial.
Dressed in the dirt you tried to pretend was dust.
And I grew.
Into a reckoning.
I grew fangs where my fragility was supposed to be.
And wings, not to fly… but to hover.
Just above you. Watching.
Waiting.
See, I don’t need to chase.
I don’t need to shout.
Stillness is how the storm gathers.
You think thunder is loud?
Try silence holding a grudge.
I am not angry.
I am ancient.
There’s a difference.
Anger flickers. I fucking burn.
Not quick. Not clean.
I scorch slow.
I stay.
I simmer like holy fire beneath cathedral skin.
I am a shrine made of scars.
A prayer built out of punishments.
And I have swallowed shame like communion…
Not just once.
But again and again, until it dissolved on my tongue.
Until I could speak it fluently.
Until I could weaponize it.
Every wound became a war cry.
Every no a coronation.
Every exile a throne carved out of refusal.
You thought you banished me.
You thought you silenced me.
You thought wrong.
Because don’t you know what I am?
I am the reckoning you asked for when you silenced your guilt.
The shadow behind your apology.
The echo behind your lies.
The god you thought would never bite back.
But here’s the thing…
I don’t want your love.
I want your recognition.
Don’t be fooled.
The reckoning wore lipstick.
Not to be pretty…
To mark the kill.
I want that flicker in your eyes.
That crack in your breath.
That full-body freeze when you finally understand:
I was never yours to name.
Never yours to break.
Only to behold.
Only to witness.
So go ahead.
Call me too much.
Too dark.
Too loud.
Too wild.
They always say that before the statues are built.
Before the songs are written.
Before the bones are kissed and turned into relics.
But when the night comes…
and it will come…
you’ll look for me in the shadows.
And finally understand:
I wasn’t trying to hurt you.
I was trying to wake you.
To show you the fire was never outside of you.
It was inside.
Locked beneath politeness.
Buried under performative femininity.
Smothered by centuries of “be nice,”
“be quiet,”
“be grateful.”
This isn’t vengeance.
This is restoration.
This is balance.
This is the pendulum swinging back.
This is the voice in the mirror that says:
“Enough.”
Because I am not the damsel.
I am the dragon.
I am not the muse.
I am the myth.
Not the girl in the poem…
but the poet who knew how to set the page on fire.
And no, I will not apologize for the volume of my truth.
I was not born for your comfort.
I was not built to be agreeable.
I did not crawl out of the floorboards just to be tolerated.
I am here to unravel.
To disarm.
To awaken.
I am the whisper they told you not to listen to.
The shadow your priest told you to fear.
The roar that lives in every woman who was ever told to dim her light.
I am her.
And I am every version of her that refused to stay dead.
So don’t you dare call this rage.
Call it remembrance.
Call it resurrection.
Call it what happens when you forget the sacred has claws.
Don’t you know what I am?
I am the after.
I am the ache.
I am the miracle wrapped in menace.
I am the cost of your forgetting.
The pulse beneath your guilt.
The scream you swallowed… now with a body.
And, babe…
I’m not your monster. I’m your mirror.