She Is Not What Was Done

She is not the broken echo of a single night,
Not the shadow stitched to silence by a stranger’s crime.
There is no adjective in violence,
Only the hollow echo of something stolen. Never her.
She walks with light that never asked for permission.
Her breath, though once held hostage, now sings louder than shame.
No name they gave her can bind her spirit,
No story etched in the past tense can claim her future.
They say “a raped girl” as if the world paused there.
As if the stars don’t still bend to trace her beauty,
As if her laugh doesn’t resurrect wildflowers from cement,
As if she is only what happened, not who rises after.
She is still the girl who danced in moonlight
Before the world dared to try and silence her song.
She is still the woman who weaves gold from grief,
Still, the voice that turns weeping into wind.
We do not carry wounds as names.
We do not become the verbs that broke us.
We are flame, not ash. Storm, not ruin.
This body, this breath, this life: wholly, fiercely ours.
So speak of her as you would of thunder,
Not because she was struck,
But because she never stopped roaring.

Copyright © Amanda Nolan | Year Posted 2025

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