Therapy Bits

I was a child
but not allowed to be one.
Hands that should have lifted me up
became weapons.
Words that should have named me beloved
split me open instead.

The house was not a home.
It was a cage.
Every corner carried the echo
of a threat,
every night stretched long and sharp
with waiting.

I learned early how to go silent,
how to read danger in the twitch of a jaw,
how to fold myself small enough
to survive.

Still,
some part of me refused to die.
It clung to scraps—
a stolen hour outside,
the smell of rain on dirt,
the certainty of stars that no one could touch.

I carry the wreckage,
but I also carry the fight.
My foundation is scar tissue,
raw, uneven, but unbreakable.
It remembers every strike
and still holds me up.

I am not healed.
But I am here.
And that is the defiance.

Foundation – Word of the Day Challenge