“They told me to heal quietly.
To make my pain palatable.
To speak in soft tones and careful language.
To forgive before the wound had stopped bleeding.
To be gracious.
To be grateful.
To be anything but angry.

But anger was the first honest thing I had felt.
It arrived like a wildfire through dead timber.
Like a Goddess with blood on Her hands and justice in Her eyes.
Like a howl clawing its way from the deepest part of me.

You called me victim.
I became witness.
You called me broken.
I became weapon.
You called me ruined.
I became revelation.

What happened to me was real.
The terror was real.
The violation was real.
The grief was real.
And so is my rage.

My rage is not a flaw.
It is the part of me that knows I deserved better.
The part that refused to die.
The part that stood guard over the ashes and
whispered:
“No more.”

No more silence.
No more shrinking.
No more carrying shame that was never mine.

I return every ounce of it.
Every lie.
Every burden.
Every poisoned seed.
Take it back.
It belongs to you.

I am done carrying the weight of another’s violence.
I am done apologizing for surviving.
I am done making myself smaller so others can remain comfortable.

I am not what was done to me.
I am what survived.

I am the fire that remained.
The blade that did not break.
The voice that rose from the wreckage.

And when I speak now,
it is not with trembling.
It is with thunder.”

-Jaclyn Cherie, Spells for Survivors: Returning to the Holy Her

Art by Jenny Hahn @jennyhahnart