Treading Ashes

She was born with the whole sky in her hands, soft fingers reaching for a world that hadn’t yet told her no. Her first breath was limitless— the kind of infinite that only newborns know, before the world shrinks them down, before the weight of it all settles into their bones. She could have been anything. A girl who laughed, who danced, who walked streets that weren’t filled with shadows, who lived in a world that didn’t demand a price for every moment of peace. But that wasn’t the world she was given. Her mother broke before she could teach her how to stand. Love was something tangled— a needle’s kiss, a bruise disguised as tenderness, a promise that life was a game where you always ended up losing. The world didn’t wait for her to grow up. It didn’t give her time to understand before it ripped away the softness, before it carved out her innocence and replaced it with hunger. She learned to walk without a destination, because no matter where she went, there were only locked doors. She learned to take, because the ones who followed the rules were the ones who got devoured first. She learned to run, because stopping meant drowning, and they don’t let girls like her come up for air. She found love once. Or maybe she only thought she did. Soft hands, whispered promises, a glimpse of something gentler. She almost believed in it. Almost. But love is another kind of cage when the world belongs to men with power, and she should have known— even those who love you will throw you away if it keeps them safe. So she learned. Not to trust. Not to dream. Not to believe in mercy. The world was a machine, and she was just another cog meant to grind itself into dust. She should have let it. She almost did. But somewhere in the marrow of her bones, beneath the scars and the bruises, beneath the hunger and the rage, something still refused. Not hope. Not faith. Not a reason. Just a screw you She would suffer, she would crawl through the ashes, she would shatter every bone in her body before she let them win. She would not kneel. She would not obey. She would not be erased. Because she was born limitless. And not even the world itself could take that from her.