🌿 Poem: I Saved Myself (for the survivors)
They did not touch us—
that was the line.
They stood at the edge of it,
saw our eyes,
and let us know
they could.
Everything else—
they stomped on.
Spaces were intentionally spoiled.
Drawings left.
Litter.
Graffiti.
Our names were whispered
in rooms we weren’t in.
They stole our ease
in our own neighborhoods.
They polluted the places
where we stood.
They decided
who we were.
They spoke.
They watched.
They gathered.
They turned tides
as if difference were a signal
to close ranks.
I learned the shape of it—
sharp, rusted edges—
how harm can move
without leaving a mark,
how a body can brace
for something that never lands
and still be injured.
I did nothing wrong.
I will say that plainly.
I did nothing wrong.
I do not carry their point of view.
It is wrong.
What a sin—
to disagree with the hierarchy.
But what was done
was done.
And I saw it.
I saw them.
I name it now
so I do not have to carry it
unnamed, like a beast,
any longer.
—
I was cut from the tree—
but I flew.
Because I had to.
I have done this before.
I find my freedoms,
my joys,
in my restarts.
I will do it again
and again
and again
if I must.
I begin again
with what is mine—
breath,
hands,
a small space that answers back.
Coffee on the counter.
Light through the window.
A garden that does not ask me to prove myself
before it grows.
I am not what they said.
I am not what they made.
I am not what they tried to contain.
I am the one who left.
—
Let them keep their rooms,
their noise,
their narrow circles.
I take my life with me.
I build
home by home,
hearth by hearth,
nest inside nest.
I am not finished.
I am not theirs.
I am here—
again—
beginning
with joy.
—
I am the one who adopts the strays.
I am the one who propagates
from broken branches.
I am the one who returns
what is discarded
to living soil.
I am the one who carries
reusable bags—
and does not argue
with the hands that double the plastic.
I do not make a scene.
I am the one who walks in peace.
I am the one who turned
the other cheek
over and over
and over again.
And still—
I am here.
I am me.
Still.
