I Was the One

When I entered that house,

my laughter scattered like pearls

from a broken, golden thread.

They spoke of duty and sacred blood,

of promises smooth as polished silk,

and I believed I had found my home.

I gave them the spring of my youth,

I gave them the river of my sweat,

I gave them the altar of my soul.

I kept the hearth burning like a sun,

calmed every passing shadow,

and called my surrender devotion.

I did not know then

that some homes are built like mazes

with iron bars hidden behind ivory walls.

Some doors open wide as a welcome,

only to lock like a tomb behind you;

some velvet robes conceal heavy chains.

I mistook stone walls for protection,

I mistook possession for love,

I mistook a quiet cage for belonging.

When my beauty began to fade,

when the season of my strength waned,

the warmth they promised vanished like mist.

Wealth and praise slipped away,

fine grain leaking through open fingers,

leaving only the cold floor beneath me.

No family value shielded my head,

no honor offered an outstretched hand.

I was pushed aside like a read ledger,

discarded when the ink ran dry.

They turned me out to the open road-

a wanderer with nowhere left to lean.

Now I walk alone,

a shadow tracing a road of ashes,

staring into a desert without end.

Behind me-shattered mirrors of the past,

before me-a horizon raw and unshaded.

I stand between them like a bird with a broken wing,

searching for a branch strong enough to hold my weight.

Even here, in the dust, eyes follow me-

cold as winter, sharp as vultures on the wind.

They do not see the weight of my sorrow;

they see only the softness of my weakness.

A few coins glitter in a callous palm,

like bread tossed before a starving bird.

A gentle word becomes a hidden snare,

a promised roof becomes a barbed hook,

and a stranger's smile becomes another cage.

Hands reach out across the dark,

not to lift a fallen spirit,

but to anchor it deeper in the mud.

They ask not if I am a daughter of grace,

or a mother holding her last spark of light.

They measure only my desperation,

seeking how easily a breaking heart can be bought.

Then I look at my child,

my little girl-

a fragile flame trembling in the gale.

She stands beside me like a wildflower

blooming in the cracks of a dry ruin,

too innocent to fear the gathering storm.

I pull her close and ask the quiet sky:

How shall I raise you upon this bare earth?

How shall I shield your delicate leaves

from the frost that waits outside?

Yet, even in the dust, light is born.

A seed buried deep does not die;

it breaks the earth to find the sun.

My scars shall not be your heritage,

my tears shall not be the water that feeds your roots.

I want a life for you where love is not a ledger,

where shelter is not bought with silence.

Where a family’s vow is an oak tree, not a trap,

and protection never demands your freedom.

May you grow untouched by the winter of hunger,

unshaded by the dark clouds of fear.

May your voice rise like a morning song

that no silence can ever extinguish.

Let every wound I carry end in my own flesh.

Let the world that broke me never learn your name.

Let my daughter grow into a woman who knows

that her soul is an unmeasured sea-

never to be owned for a season,

never to be used when convenient,

never to be cast away when the harvest ends.

Let her know that true love is an open sky,

a hand that helps her soar,

a sanctuary whose doors turn on silent hinges-

always welcoming, always free,

never locked by love.