Unapologetic

I have stumbled.

Contorted into shapes I thought would be loved.

Tried to be the echo instead of the voice,

softened my roar to a whisper

that even I could not hear.

No more.

You were not born to be liked.

Not sculpted from wet clay, pressed into safe hands.

You were forged—

a blade, bright on the anvil of your own defiance.

Etch your name with a stiletto tempered in conviction,

not a feather quill dipped in borrowed ink.

If you shrink, you vanish.

If you blend, you blur.

How will those seeking fire

find only the cold ash of your pretending?

Some watch.

Some do.

Some wear masks—

and some rip them free.

It is not that watchers cannot become doers,

nor that the masked cannot unmask—

but you were never meant to be part of the chorus,

you were the single note that shatters the glass.

Stop trying to be silence

in a room waiting for your thunder.

Let them call you too much.

Let them shield their eyes from your glare.

Better to be the wildfire

than the flicker begging for wind.

Face the mirror.

Beyond the reflection, see the lion.

Hear its breath in your own lungs,

feel its pulse in your own skin.

You were never waiting to become—

you have always been.

Step forward unbound.

Let the world shatter and reform in your wake.