Say It Back
You can only apologize so many times for being here.
You can only explain yourself until your vowels are exhausted.
They wrote rules around my life
and handed me the bill.
They made bathrooms into battlegrounds
and called it “for safety.”
They made my childhood a case study
and auctioned my pride for status.
I am tired of being the homework people never finish.
I am tired of teaching empathy
to mouths that prefer to chew on fear.
Patience in my chest has fossilized
into something that doesn’t move,
and I am not interested in being polite
while they legislate my existence.
So I say this—
I will not spend my life explaining
why I deserve to exist.
I will not turn my name into a footnote
to make you comfortable.
If leaving feels like the only clear option,
I remind myself—
it is a protest, not a surrender.
And still,
there are little mercies
that keep my world from folding:
a friend who learns your name
and says it with love.
A text at 2 AM that says,
You are safe here.
A laugh that refuses to stay small.
Looking in the mirror and being okay
with the person who stares back.
You owe them nothing.
Not your grace.
Not your explanations.
Not your silence.
Take your rage like a hammer—
use it to dismantle the places
that make you want to leave.
Plant your feet.
Say your name.
Breathe the kind of breath
that keeps you here.
I am _________
I exist.
Say it back.
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