just-another-songbirdy

[just-another-songbirdy]

I Hope You Thought of Me Today

for the ones who saw me as the smoke and forgot to ask about the fire.

I hope I brushed the back of your memory today

like a draft through a sealed-off hallway—

somewhere behind the family photos

you framed too neatly

to ever admit they were cracked underneath.

Maybe I slipped in sideways

between your errands and your caffeine crash.

Maybe I was the thing you didn’t quite remember

but couldn’t quite ignore,

like the echo of a fight

you swore you were right in.

Maybe your teeth clenched for no reason.

Maybe you sighed and didn’t know why.

Maybe it wasn’t guilt—

maybe it was recognition,

the body’s way of saying,

“you’re not the hero in every story you tell.”

Because I know how you painted me.

In shades of wildfire and warning signs,

in whispers that wore choir robes,

in half-truths that sat holy in pews

while the whole truth cried outside in the car.

You gave me the role of the ruin,

called me the smoke,

the serpent,

the scarlet-lettered girl

with too much mouth and too many questions.

But I wasn’t fire.

I was a match you struck

when the room got too dark.

I didn’t ruin the house.

I just refused to be the wallpaper

holding it together.

⸻

I hope you thought of me

when the song came on—

you know the one—

the one I said felt like running barefoot

through childhood

before we learned

who was allowed to speak

and who had to nod politely

while swallowing thunder.

I hope your hands twitched

like they wanted to reach back

but couldn’t remember how.

⸻

Maybe it was today you realized

I didn’t leave.

You did.

Not with your feet,

but with your silence.

You backed out of the room slowly,

like my love was a crime scene

you didn’t want fingerprints on.

You left me to mop up

the broken glass of our shared mythology.

You went back to your script,

rewrote the ending,

turned me into the villain

because the mirror

was too honest to forgive.

You chose comfort

over clarity.

Tradition over truth.

Clean narratives

over complicated people.

⸻

But I wasn’t complication.

I was contrast.

I was the shadow that proved

your light was real.

I was the voice in the room

that didn’t harmonize

because I knew too well

what it felt like

to sing a lie beautifully.

⸻

I hope you thought of me

when your child asked a question

you didn’t know how to answer.

Maybe they saw someone

living loudly

and loving fully

and asked,

“Why does she make you uncomfortable?”

And maybe—just maybe—

you didn’t have the words

to tell them that you feared me

because I stopped fearing you.

That I became dangerous

not by being evil,

but by being free.

⸻

I hope I showed up

in the ache behind your eyes

when the room got quiet.

When the church let out.

When the praise songs ended.

When you were left

with your hands and your heart

and no more smoke to blame.

I hope I showed up in that stillness

like an old bruise that finally bloomed.

Because I loved you.

All of you.

More than I should’ve.

Harder than was safe.

Longer than was wise.

I held you like a secret.

Tucked you in with words I wasn’t allowed to speak.

I learned your shape in the dark

because daylight wasn’t safe

for girls like me

in families like ours.

⸻

I hope you remembered

how I wept quietly

in the corners of rooms

you swore were built on love

but echoed like judgment halls.

I hope you remembered

that I wore your shame

like a hand-me-down dress

that never quite fit

but I smiled in it anyway.

Because I wanted you

to be proud of me.

Even when I couldn’t breathe.

⸻

You told the story of me

in broken grammar—

fragments and slander,

but never the full sentence.

Never the paragraph

where I bled kindness

and begged the silence

to let me belong.

You forgot to mention

I was the one still showing up

after the pews emptied,

after the gossip cooled.

That I was the one

cleaning up the spilled communion juice

while you whispered in the parking lot.

⸻

I hope you thought of me

when you said grace over your food

and remembered

I was the one who fasted

to feel worthy.

I hope you thought of me

when the wind blew just right—

how it carried my laughter

back to you

wrapped in all the things

you never took the time to understand.

⸻

I hope your dreams

cracked a little at the seams tonight.

Not from regret,

but from realization.

That maybe the one you cast out

wasn’t the wolf,

but the lamb

who grew teeth

after too many bites went unpunished.

⸻

I am not your scapegoat.

I am not your soft landing.

I am not the ghost

of your convenience.

I am not the sin

you toss in prayer baskets

and pretend you never danced with.

⸻

I hope you thought of me

like a long-lost word

that suddenly mattered.

Like a map

you folded wrong

but now need to find your way.

Because I thought of you.

And I am not angry.

I am ancient.

I am soil and salt and spark.

I am the echo of what could have been

if love had not been weaponized.

⸻

I don’t need you to say you’re sorry.

I don’t need you to see me now.

But I hope, for one small moment,

you felt the ache

of everything you missed

when you chose

to believe

your story was the only one

that mattered.

And I hope it broke you open

just enough

to let some truth

finally bloom

inside the hollow parts

you keep calling

righteousness.

⸻

Because I’ve done the work

you said I couldn’t.

Dug through the rubble

of your assumptions,

pulled the sharp from my name,

stitched light into my own damn spine.

I’ve rebuilt from the marrow

of what you tried to strip.

I’ve found new mouths

that speak in love,

not leverage.

I’ve tasted freedom,

and it is not sweet—

it is earned.

And it is mine.

⸻

So no,

I won’t shrink to fit

your memory.

I won’t soften the edges

to make myself easier

to misremember.

I am sharp.

I am soft.

I am storm and shelter.

I am the hymn that cracked your stained glass

when you tried to keep God inside a cage.

And I hope you thought of me today.

Because I thought of you—

with the strange ache

of someone

who has loved deeply

and left quietly.

With the grace

of someone

who knows

they were never the monster—

just the mirror

you were too afraid

to keep looking into.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“Second-Guessing the Sunrise”

I want to believe him.

I want to believe this.

That not every sweet thing

comes with splinters tucked behind its kiss.

But every time someone looks at me like I’m gold,

I remember how quickly treasure turns to target.

I’m tired of doubt being the loudest guest at the table.

Tired of my instincts fighting my hope

like they’re ancient enemies

forced to share a body.

I didn’t ask for this—

this reflex to squint at sincerity,

to hold love at arm’s length

like it might explode.

But here I am.

Opening my chest with tweezers,

removing old betrayals like shrapnel,

hoping he won’t add more.

It’s not that he’s done anything wrong.

It’s just—

I’ve seen too much dressed in right

before it unraveled.

I’ve been made the villain

in a story I didn’t write.

Told I was loved

while someone else

was learning how I break.

So now, even kindness

makes me suspicious.

Even flowers feel like camouflage.

I don’t want to be this girl.

The one who questions every calm.

The one who looks for the exit

before she’s even stepped inside.

But I’ve survived rooms

that pretended to be safe

until the walls came alive.

Now I check for fire

before I sit down.

I check for lies

in the softest smiles.

I check for the old ghosts

in brand new skin.

And still—

still—

I show up.

With my hands shaking

and my heart suspicious,

but open.

Worn, but open.

So if I question you,

if I flinch at love,

it’s not because you’re wrong.

It’s because I’ve been so wronged

I can barely tell what right feels like anymore.

But I’m still here.

Still trying.

Still learning that I can be skeptical

and still worthy.

Still cracked,

and still capable of being

something soft

that doesn’t shatter.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“We Swear We’ll Sleep Early”

but the clock knows better

We make the same sweet lie every night,

like clockwork,

only the clock is laughing behind our backs.

10:30 PM:

You: “We’re gonna be responsible tonight.”

Me: Already horizontal, nodding like I’m signing a contract.

“We’ll be asleep by midnight.”

This time.

We mean it.

We’re grown.

We value REM cycles.

We are mature—

Cut to:

12:07 AM.

We’re in the kitchen

making toast we don’t need,

debating if penguins have knees,

Googling it,

then arguing about whether we trust Google anymore.

12:59 AM.

You’ve pulled up some obscure video

about how ancient Romans brushed their teeth.

I am wrapped around you

like I’m trying to become a scarf

and simultaneously asking

what you would do if I died

but also if you think I’d look cute as a ghost.

1:26 AM.

The lights are off now,

but we are not quiet.

You say “shh”

right before another random thought grabs you

by the throat

and now you have to tell me

about that one time in 6th grade

you farted during silent reading.

1:51 AM.

We are giggling like fugitives.

Our dog sighs.

Even she’s tired of our lies.

2:08 AM.

Finally, we fade,

facing opposite directions

but touching toes

like it’s our secret pinky promise.

Because we are terrible at sleep,

but excellent at existing together

in the weird liminal hours

when the world is quiet,

and our brains are loud,

and somehow love

feels the most alive

when it’s two dumb idiots

laughing

in the dark.

[just-another-songbirdy]

I Don’t Want My Words to Mean Nothing

I used to speak like I was apologizing

to the air for taking up space—

little bird-throat truths

that fluttered out and died mid-flight.

Now, I speak to you

like I’m carving scripture into wet clay.

Not the holy kind—

the human kind.

The kind that bleeds when you hold it too hard,

but keeps showing up in your hands anyway.

I do not want my voice

to be a screensaver in your mind,

looping, pretty,

but never really there.

I want it to short-circuit your quiet.

To make you forget how to swallow

because the weight of what I say

hangs like honey off your ribs.

I am not trying to be poetic.

I am trying to be understood.

There’s a difference.

Poetry leaves room for interpretation.

I leave room for no exit.

If you climb inside these words,

you better bring a lantern

and your favorite sweater—

it gets warm and cold in me,

sometimes at the same time.

When I tell you I love you,

I don’t mean the Hallmark kind.

I mean the kind

where I’d rip out my metaphors

just to hand you one plain sentence

that doesn’t need translation.

I love you.

Like—

socks on cold tile.

Like—

finding a childhood smell in a stranger’s coat.

Like—

the moon knowing my name

when no one else remembered it.

I want you to ache when I speak.

Not because it hurts,

but because it heals something

you forgot was broken.

I want my voice to feel like

a second spine you didn’t know you needed.

Not romantic,

but ruinously real.

I do not want to be

just the murmur you forget

when the world gets loud.

I want to be

your second language.

The one you speak in dreams

before you remember

you ever learned the first.

Because if I say I’m yours,

I mean

don’t misplace me in a drawer

with all the other things

you meant to get back to.

I’m not small talk.

I’m storm language.

I am the siren

you mistake for a warning

but was always meant to save you.

So please,

don’t let my words

mean nothing.

Not when they’ve come

from everything

I never thought

would make it out alive.

[just-another-songbirdy]

Read This Before You Judge Me

I was twelve

when the sky cracked open

and no one came to cover us.

So I did.

Three small bodies—

nine, nine, and eight—

huddled in the wreckage,

and I became the roof.

The light left on.

The warmth in the middle of winter

I never got for myself.

I packed their lunches with hands

that still shook from growing too fast.

Read bedtime stories

with a voice learning how to break quietly.

Smiled so they wouldn’t have to wonder

how it felt to carry the storm.

By fifteen,

the world had already taken things

it had no right to.

Not loudly.

Not in a way anyone noticed.

But in a way that never left.

I folded into myself

and called it coping.

I flinched from love

and called it strength.

I walked through fire

and came out dressed for school

like nothing ever happened.

They called me strong.

I called it survival.

They called me mature.

I called it lonely.

They called me a liar

when I finally stopped pretending

and reached for something gentle.

Later, I signed the papers.

Not because I gave up,

but because he already had.

I did not leave—

I was left.

And when love came again—

soft-spoken, steady,

unafraid of my jagged edges—

I chose it.

Not because I was reckless,

but because I finally knew

what safety felt like.

But the world is quicker to crucify

than it is to understand.

They called me unfaithful.

Too fast.

Too much.

Too soon.

Because they didn’t see the before.

Because they didn’t ask.

They weren’t there

when I held three little hands

through courtrooms and custody.

Wiped tears that weren’t mine

and learned to swallow my own.

They weren’t there

when I laid awake,

fighting ghosts I never invited in.

But I was.

And I stayed.

And I survived.

And I loved.

In spite of everything.

Because of everything.

So if you must judge me,

do it knowing this:

I am not the villain in your retelling.

I am not a headline

or a whisper

or a shameful footnote.

I am the girl who rose

from silence and split skin,

from loss and long nights,

from love that never held

to love that finally did.

I am still here—

bruised, burning,

and breathtakingly alive.

[just-another-songbirdy]

I’d Swallow the Moon If You Asked Me To

I used to love like a locked diary,

pages stained with coffee and almosts,

words pressed so hard they bled through.

But you—

you read me out loud,

even the parts I scribbled out in rage.

You love me like I’m your favorite typo.

Like I make the sentence better

by being a little off.

You showed up

like a bookshelf in a burning room,

and I clung to your spine

like a story that wasn’t ready to end.

I’m not healed.

But I’m healing.

In your hands, I’m a thrifted teacup,

cracked but not leaking,

filled to the brim with something warm

that I never knew I liked the taste of.

You kissed me like you were tasting stars

and didn’t care if you got burnt.

And now my skin

remembers you like a strange religion—

holy,

but with inside jokes

and a playlist that slaps.

My heart used to be a sock drawer

of mismatched things.

Now it’s a constellation

with your name in every star

and a few misspelled just for fun.

You love me like a scientist loves

an unsolvable problem—

curiously,

obsessively,

with whiteboards full of theories

and no plan to stop asking questions.

And God,

I want you like I want

to eat dessert before dinner.

Like I want to dive into puddles

wearing expensive shoes.

Like I want to build a blanket fort

and live there

with you

forever,

as long as we have snacks.

I want you so bad

it hums under my ribs.

I want you like a poem

wants a mouth to scream it.

You don’t eclipse anything—

you rewire it.

You turned my pain into a wind-up toy

that spins in crooked little circles

and somehow still makes me laugh.

No battle, no ghost,

no echo of almost-love

could sculpt the wild wonder

you make feel like home.

Because you—

you are the softest place

I’ve ever landed,

the loudest yes

my soul ever shouted,

the miracle I forgot to believe in

until you

walked in,

smiled like gravity,

and made every broken part of me

sit up straight

and say,

“There.

That one.

That’s where we stay.”

[just-another-songbirdy]

Maybe Today

I woke up

like a chapter that didn’t end the way anyone expected—

but still mattered.

My eyes opened slow,

and there he was.

Not a rescue.

Not a rewrite.

Just a man

who doesn’t flinch

when I forget how to be soft.

Some mornings,

it feels like grief wears my face.

Like I’m still half-asleep inside a version of myself

that forgot how to hope out loud.

But then his hand finds mine

like it always knows where I am—

even when I don’t.

He doesn’t need me to be lighter.

He doesn’t ask for clarity

in places where I only have metaphor.

He just loves me

without editing a thing.

And that matters more

than anything I ever begged for

from someone who only read the title

and thought they knew the book.

This is not the life I thought I’d have.

It’s messier.

Quieter.

Braver.

I used to wake up

feeling like an apology.

Now I wake up

and stay.

Not because it’s perfect.

But because it’s real.

And I am no longer waiting

to be less complicated

to deserve it.

Maybe today,

I’ll laugh.

Maybe I’ll ache.

Maybe I’ll want more time

than the clock is willing to give me.

But I’ll love.

And be loved.

And that is something

I once thought I’d have to earn back

in pieces.

Not anymore.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“You Left Before I Did”

You left

before I did.

Before the marriage ended,

before the vows cracked,

before I found comfort in another voice—

you were already gone.

Not in body.

But in the way your eyes wandered

to strangers behind screens,

to women you never had to love,

only impress.

You were messaging them

while I was still believing

we could be fixed.

You stepped out quietly.

With words you never sent me.

With attention I had begged for.

With charm I hadn’t seen in months.

But I’m the one who broke the rules, right?

Because I walked away

after being invisible in my own house.

Because I found someone who listened

after you stopped speaking to me

unless it was about groceries, or bills, or obligations.

They don’t ask what you did.

They don’t question your coldness.

They don’t see that your betrayal

had a login screen and a time stamp.

They only talk about when I stopped pretending.

But I remember everything.

I remember checking your phone

and finding versions of you

I never got to meet.

I remember wondering why you flirted with strangers

and forgot how to hold me.

I remember who left who

first.

And I will not carry the weight

of both our choices

just because I was the one

who finally said it out loud.

[just-another-songbirdy]

Why I Didn’t Put You On Blast

Because you weren’t always this way.

There was a time you were gentle—

not just in your hands,

but in how you saw me.

In how you chose me.

But somewhere between

your silence and your shifting,

I stopped recognizing the man I once trusted

to know my heart.

You changed.

Not overnight—

but gradually,

like a slow leak in the foundation

I was still standing on.

You hardened.

You pulled away.

You wore distance like armor

and truth like a threat.

And when I asked if something was wrong,

you made me feel foolish

for noticing the cold.

I could have told them everything.

I could’ve put your name in every line,

let the world see the cracks you left

in the version of me that stayed too long.

But I didn’t.

Not because you deserved my silence—

but because I deserved peace.

Because I’m not interested

in dragging your name

through places I’ve already healed from.

I didn’t put you on blast

because your actions

are already loud.

Because the absence of who you used to be

says more than I ever could.

You changed—

and I had to grieve

the man who no longer existed

while sleeping beside the one who took his place.

That was enough pain.

I didn’t need to turn it into a performance.

I chose quiet.

I chose grace.

I chose to rebuild in peace

instead of retaliating in noise.

And if the truth stings now—

that’s between you and the mirror.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“This Is What It Feels Like”

I used to ache

like a half-written verse—

unfinished,

unheard,

too much rhythm for the wrong kind of ears.

I used to beg the world to meet me

in the middle of my own softness,

but it kept asking me to be quieter,

simpler,

less.

Now,

I rest in the pause between your hands.

In the stillness of your voice

when you say my name

like it’s a place you’ve always known.

You don’t reach for me to fix me.

You don’t ask me to be easy.

You just stay—

steady, soft,

the kind of presence that doesn’t ask for attention

because it is attention.

You notice the small shifts.

The way my laughter trails off

when something old aches beneath it.

The silence I keep

when I’m not sure if it’s safe to speak.

And still—

you listen.

You ask how I’m doing

and wait past the first answer.

You don’t flinch when I get honest.

You just move closer,

like proximity is your promise.

With you,

I don’t perform.

I don’t shrink.

I don’t apologize for being too much

or not enough.

I exist—

messy, full,

sometimes trembling—

and you don’t try to hold less of me.

You hold all of it.

And maybe this is what intimacy really is:

not skin,

not secrets,

but being seen

and not being asked

to disappear.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“If It Hurts, It Was Meant To”

I’m not mad.

Truly.

I’ve stopped rehearsing the what-ifs,

stopped trying to package my pain in polite language

to make it easier for you to digest.

But if this stings—

if reading this makes your chest tighten—

then maybe it’s because you know

exactly where you left me.

I was the one who made space.

The one who showed up,

stayed late,

said “no worries”

while I bled quietly in the corner

so you wouldn’t feel guilty.

I used to think loyalty meant staying quiet

about the way I was treated.

Now I know—

loyalty doesn’t mean disappearing for someone else’s comfort.

I’m not angry.

I just see clearly now.

And I won’t unsee.

You didn’t have to betray me to lose me.

You just had to keep looking through me

while I was right there.

And maybe that doesn’t haunt you.

Maybe you sleep fine.

But if my name still echoes in your memory

with a hint of ache,

if my silence feels heavier than my presence ever did—

then you felt it too.

You just didn’t say anything.

And I’m not here to shame you.

I’m here to heal.

I’m here to say:

I deserved more.

And I give that more to myself now.

If that hurts—

if it lingers—

then good.

It was supposed to.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“The Shift”

Life is different now.

Not louder.

Not softer.

Just different.

The same streets don’t know my name.

The same voices I once trusted

talk quieter when I walk by.

Some don’t speak at all.

They look at me

like I’m stained.

Like I wandered too far

from the person they could understand.

But I’m still me.

Just unhidden.

Undone.

Unfolding.

I didn’t ask for their permission

to breathe again.

To choose differently.

To stop performing peace

and actually seek it.

And still—

their smiles don’t reach me.

Their hugs don’t hold me.

I can feel the difference

in the room when I enter.

Like I’m carrying a story

they’d rather not hear.

But I’ve lived it.

I’ve survived it.

And I don’t need

their applause

to keep going.

I only ever wanted love

that wasn’t conditional

on my silence.

And now that I’ve stepped out,

they say I’ve changed.

But maybe I just stopped shrinking.

Maybe I finally

let the light in.

Even if it burned a little.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“I Woke Up With Galaxies in My Teeth”

I woke up with galaxies in my teeth—

stars caught between molars,

like I bit down on the universe in my sleep

and dared it to tell me I couldn’t shine.

My bones creaked like old floorboards

in the house of a woman

who’s been both haunted

and holy.

I stretched—

and it was not a prayer

but a declaration.

I am still here.

You don’t get to silence a songbird

just because she’s bruised.

You don’t get to unwrite a poem

just because it bleeds in the margins.

I am not yesterday’s mess—

I am the fire that cleaned it up.

My heartbeat is a drumline

marching down the avenue of

we made it.

Of try me.

Of I was built from broken glass but look how I shimmer.

You can’t shame a soul that’s already danced

naked in its regret

and come back with rhythm in its scars.

I’ve been the girl who swallowed her own voice

just to keep peace.

But this mouth now—

this mouth is warpaint and honey.

This mouth is revolution with rhythm,

a gospel that knows grief by name

but sings anyway.

So let the world turn heavy.

Let the sun take its time.

I’ll be here—

coffee in one hand,

hope in the other,

writing truth with breath,

spitting poems that sound like survival,

like joy after storm,

like I dared to love myself loud

and meant it.

This morning is mine.

This body, still aching,

is a cathedral of coming back.

And my voice?

My voice is thunder,

kind and unrelenting—

reminding every soul still half-asleep:

You are not a burden.

You are a beginning.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“Not Beyond Return”

They say I jumped too soon.

That I left wreckage and ran for warmth.

That I betrayed what was sacred

before the ink had dried.

But let me speak this clearly—

He was just a friend

when I still wore the name of a wife.

No lines crossed.

No vows broken in secret.

Just two people talking

when I had no one else listening.

Was it wise? Maybe not.

Was it betrayal? No.

Because by the time hearts opened,

papers were signed,

rings returned,

and the door I once begged to stay closed

was left wide open by someone else.

I didn’t leave that marriage.

I signed what he handed me.

I wasn’t what he wanted anymore,

so I stopped pretending I was.

And yes—

I found something soft

on the other side of ruin.

Yes, that man lives with me now.

And yes, I know

what Scripture says.

I know what the whispers say.

I know what my spirit still wrestles with

when I’m quiet enough to listen.

But don’t rewrite my story with shame

when I’ve already lived the truth.

Don’t call me fallen

when I’ve never stopped trying to rise.

Don’t call me a liar

because I wanted to protect what little peace I had left.

I didn’t leap into sin.

I staggered toward love,

still sore from being unloved,

still clinging to what felt safe

after being thrown away.

I am not blameless.

But I am not lost.

I am not a victim.

But I am not a villain.

I am someone

learning to hold grace and grit

in both hands.

Someone still becoming

someone God can use.

So let them talk.

Let them pray with furrowed brows.

Let them take a step back

if they need to.

I’ll keep walking forward

with my hands open,

my head high,

and my heart still beating

for something holy.

Because I am not beyond return.

And this—this chapter—

will not be the one that defines me.

Only the one that refines me.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“Never the Poster Child”

I didn’t roll my skirt.

Didn’t roll my eyes.

Didn’t curse at teachers

Or sneak out the back door.

I played the part they gave me—

But never quite became it.

I was good in school.

Polite. Predictable.

They mistook that for agreement.

Mistook quiet for compliance.

Mistook presence for belief.

They called me the example,

Held me up like a candle in the dark,

But never noticed the wax melting down my spine.

I didn’t ask to be their golden child.

Didn’t ask to be raised on guilt

And scripture I wasn’t allowed to question.

My parents broke apart

And so did the life I thought I knew.

I was passed like a verse

From one chapter to the next—

From a broken home

To a stricter one.

Suddenly love had rules,

And I learned them like a second language.

Spoke “grateful” fluently,

Even when I ached.

I didn’t rebel in ways they could write off.

Didn’t leave scars in obvious places.

But my rebellion was quiet—

It was in the way I kept parts of myself hidden,

In the thoughts I never dared to speak

Because truth wasn’t welcome unless it matched the sermon.

I followed the rules

Because breaking them meant exile.

But I was never theirs.

Not fully.

I stayed in the lines

And still never fit the picture.

They thought obedience meant I agreed.

But inside, I was learning how to breathe

Without permission.

How to believe

Without boundaries.

How to be

Without apology.

No, I wasn’t the poster child.

I was the quiet contradiction.

The still storm.

The soft “no”

Wrapped in years of “yes.”

I didn’t roll my skirt.

Didn’t roll my eyes.

But I never belonged in their frame.

And now—

I don’t need one.

[just-another-songbirdy]

My Soul Might Want to End

I wake up every day with a body that don’t quite fit,

a soul that screams like it’s been skinned raw,

dragged across church pews and dinner tables where love

was conditional on silence.

And I’ve tried—God, I’ve tried—

to be holy, humble, quiet,

the right kind of broken,

the easy kind to forgive.

But I am tired of biting my tongue until it bleeds Scripture.

Tired of watching people love me

only when I hurt the way they want me to.

I’m tired of being a mirror

for other people’s righteousness,

shattered by their reflection,

cracked when I don’t reflect their version of redemption.

My soul doesn’t want to die—

not really.

It just wants rest.

It wants a break from being dissected under the microscope of judgment,

from the slow burn of family love laced with conditions,

from the prayers that come with fine print.

It wants to be held

not handled.

It wants God,

not their version of Him wrapped in shame and stipulations.

And I get it—

they think they’re saving me.

They think quoting fire and brimstone is grace.

They think “turn from your sin”

is the same as “come sit with me in your pain.”

But it’s not.

And while they’re flipping pages to find my flaws,

I’m just flipping breaths,

trying to remember how to stay.

And here’s what I know

even with a soul torn ragged from tug-of-war prayers

and eyes too dry to cry anymore:

I am not theirs to fix

or forsake.

I’m not a project

to be presented polished,

or a parable they get to finish writing.

I am not finished.

But I’m done.

Done begging for grace from hands

that shake Bibles like gavels.

Done performing for love

that leaves when I don’t repent fast enough.

Done shrinking myself

to fit the mold of their comfort

while my soul suffocates under the weight of their “concern.”

This is the end of the apology

for being broken in the wrong direction.

This is the period after the plea,

the full stop in the sentence they keep writing me into.

Because I’ve got nothing left but God—

and that’s enough.

So I’ll walk away—slow, trembling,

but on my feet,

not my knees.

And when they check for a pulse,

let them know:

She chose to live.

Even if she had to do it

without them.

[just-another-songbirdy]

“If You Asked Me How I Feel”

If you asked me how I feel,

I wouldn’t give you scripture.

I wouldn’t give you doctrine or defense.

I’d say—

I feel like a wound

someone keeps picking at

and calling it love.

I feel tired

of tiptoeing between truth and peace

and still tripping over both.

I feel like I’ve been dissected,

examined,

held under light like a crime scene,

when all I needed was a hand to hold.

I feel watched.

Not seen.

I feel like grace is only available

when I earn it,

and even then,

there’s a clause.

A correction.

A “but.”

I feel the weight

of being human

in a room full of people

pretending they’re angels.

I feel like I apologized for bleeding

on someone else’s knife.

I feel like I could shout my whole story

and still not be heard

because you already wrote the ending

and decided I was the villain.

I feel betrayed

by silence that posed as patience

and questions that were really judgments

dressed in Sunday best.

I feel like family means

“follow these rules or fend for yourself.”

I feel like crying

but I’m tired of crying.

So I write instead.

I breathe instead.

I whisper to God in the quiet places

because He listens without a gavel in His hand.

I feel—

uninvited

to a table I helped build.

I feel—

like I’m growing

and you’re grieving

the version of me that no longer fits in your frame.

And I’m sorry for that.

But not for healing.

I feel like I still want love.

I feel like I still want you.

But not like this.

If you asked me how I feel,

I’d say:

I’m still here.

Still open.

Still soft beneath the scars.

Still hoping

that one day,

feeling won’t be a sin

and honesty won’t be heresy.

That one day,

my heart will be enough

even if it doesn’t come

with a confession you approve of.