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Kaleigh Jae Poem
Inspired by and loosely based on the song UNATTRACTIVE by Sofia Isella and the pure feminine rage she pumps into all of her songs <3
my hands shake in the dark
I want to hold yours in the fire
watch your skin curl and scream
in my mouth, the taste of venom
I want to spit it in your face
make you flinch at my reflection
my chest twists like a fist
I want to break it open
let the shattered pieces fly across the floor
I want to be ugly
violent
repulsive
a warning carved in bone and smoke
every glance you throw
is a strike, a spark, a storm
I want to match it
with teeth, claws, and fire
I want to claw my eyes out
just to see if the world will finally see what I feel
I want to pull my face apart
and laugh when you shiver, flinch and squirm
I want to be the thing
you can’t touch
can’t own
can't manipulate
can’t grasp
I want to bleed power
and let it stain the air
so even your shadow
knows my fury
I want to be every storm
you ignored
every fire
you tried to smother
I am spit
acid
teeth
nails
I am the mirror you flinch from
the shadow in the corner of every room
I want revenge ten times over
twisting inside
shards
flying across the floor
screaming my name
I want to scream myself into grotesque perfection
rip myself open so the world can see the chaos I carry
I am teeth
I am claws
I am the ash in your lungs
I am the rage
I am the ruin
I am everything you feared
and everything you tried to break
I am not your monster
I am the one you will remember
when the walls burn
when smoke chokes out the sky
when nothing else remains
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
They tell us to speak up:
To report.
To be brave.
To come forward.
They tell us
Truth has power.
That if we speak
someone will listen.
When I spoke, nothing happened.
No concern.
No protection.
No care.
It was disbelief.
It was discomfort.
It was a power with a tightly wound smile and a fixed viewpoint.
I told her he touched me, violated me,
Turned my body to a battlefield in which I was both sides warring.
I told her I was scared.
That I needed help.
She glared at me and stated
I was harassing him.
I needed to leave him alone.
I was scaring him.
And just like that, his hands were clean,
And their disdain became his protection.
Their indifference became my pain.
My friends were present,
Their eyes met mine.
They watched it unfold.
They still stood with him afterward,
They still laughed with him,
They still made space for him at the table while I sat trembling,
trying not to disappear again.
My mom had only known a fraction.
She knew something terrible had happened that day.
But she didn’t know the whole truth.
I told her a version I thought she could handle, because the real story,
The full, brutal truth of her daughter losing control of her body would have destroyed her,
I wanted to hide the truth.
I wanted to protect her from the truth.
Now the truth is all I want.
But back then
the truth felt too heavy
to hand to someone I loved.
I had to carry it myself.
I carried the memory
of hands that were never supposed to touch me.
I carried the sound of my own voice
breaking in that office
while someone in power
looked at me
like I was the problem.
I carried the moment
my friends watched
and said nothing.
And I told my mom
just enough
to explain the tears
Because how do you tell your mother,
that the people she trusted
to keep her daughter safe
Didn't?
How do you tell her
that someone turned your body
into a place you no longer recognize?
I couldn’t
I swallowed the rest of the story
and tried to live with it alone.
I tried to move forward
like nothing happened.
Like I was still fully present.
But my mind kept drifting
outside my body.
That wasn’t weakness.
It was survival.
Psychologists call it dissociation—
a trauma response
when the brain tries to protect itself
from something it cannot safely process.
My brain protected me
when no one else did.
Still, some nights
I drift back.
Back to the office.
Back to the moment
the truth, was weighed
and quickly dismissed.
Back to where my tears
meant nothing.
(see pt two)
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
(See pts 1 & 2 first please, it will make more sense <3)
I began flinching when people brushed past me.
Began checking doors twice, three times, four
Began doubting my own memory-- because
when everyone treats you like a liar,
You begin to genuinely wonder if your pain is real.
But it is.
I feel it every day.
In the tightness in my chest.
In the way l avoid eye contact.
In the way I talk.
Two years later, he walks free, his smile untouched
While I carry memories
stitched permanently
with pain.
He probably doesn't think about it. But I do.
Every time someone says
“You should have reported sooner.”
Every time someone says
“But he seemed like such a nice person.”
Every time someone in power shrugs and says
“It’s complicated.”
It is not complicated.
It's a system built to protect predators and punish survivors.
A system that tells girls they need to speak up, then shoots them down and labels them liars when they do.
So this is what I know now.
Speaking doesn’t guarantee anything.
It doesn’t guarantee someone will listen.
It doesn’t guarantee someone will care.
Sometimes you tell the truth
and the room just gets quieter.
Sometimes you tell the truth
and people decide it’s easier
not to believe you.
But that doesn’t change what happened.
And it doesn’t change who is responsible.
Systems like this depend on silence.
On doubt.
On people deciding it’s easier
not to get involved.
They depend on girls deciding
it’s safer to keep quiet.
And a lot of them do.
Because they watched what happened
to someone who didn’t.
But I already spoke.
And I’m not going to pretend it didn’t happen
just to make things easier for everyone else.
The truth doesn’t disappear
because someone in authority said it didn’t matter.
It doesn’t disappear
because people chose not to see it.
The truth is still here.
And so am I.
And I will keep speaking—
not just for me.
For every girl who’s afraid to speak.
For every survivor who has been silenced.
For every system that has failed us.
We cannot let silence protect predators anymore.
We cannot let fear decide who is believed.
We must demand accountability.
We must change the rules
so that speaking out
does not feel like survival.
This is not just my story.
It is ours.
And we will not be ignored.
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
It doesn’t happen all at once.
There isn’t a moment
where the sky splits open
and hands you clarity
like forgiveness.
It’s quieter than that.
It starts in the small pauses between your thoughts—
where something
you’ve been avoiding
finally looks back at you.
And doesn’t blink.
You try to rename it.
Call it stress.
Call it timing.
Call it anything but what it is.
But the truth is patient.
It waits
in the way your chest tightens
when you’re alone.
In the way silence starts to feel louder
than noise ever did.
And eventually
you run out of places to hide.
Not because the world finds you.
But because
you do.
—to be continued—
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
She wore the mask for so long,
That she forgot what it was hiding.
At first, it was a shield,
A way to protect herself from the world,
But over time,
The mask became her face.
The smile, the laugh,
The things she used to wear on the outside
Now lived on the inside.
But one day,
she looked in the mirror,
And she didn’t recognize herself.
she couldn’t remember
What her real face looked like,
What she used to sound like,
Before she became someone else’s idea of who she should be.
And she realized,
She'd been hiding for so long,
She forgot what she was hiding from.
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
(see pt 1 first please, it will make more sense <3)
My brain protected me
when no one else did.
Still, some nights
I drift back.
Back to the office.
Back to the moment
the truth, was weighed
and quickly dismissed.
Back to where my tears
meant nothing.
Because trauma is uncomfortable.
Because truth is unfavorable.
And it's easier to write me off
than to admit that the school failed.
That she failed.
That he is not who they wanted him to be.
And the cruelest part is this:
the system was never meant
to protect people like me.
It was meant to protect itself.
According to the RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) organization:
Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are ever reported to police.
Out of those reports
only 50 lead to arrest.
Only 28 lead to felony conviction.
And only 25 lead to incarceration.
That means the vast majority
of survivors watch the person who hurt them
walk away untouched.
Statistics like that
do not describe a broken system.
They describe
a functioning one.
One that quietly calculates
whose pain matters
and whose silence is convenient.
Because when girls watch
what happens to those who report
they learn something.
They learn the cost of speaking.
They learn that telling the truth
means being questioned, doubted, dissected.
What were you wearing?
Why were you there?
Why didn’t you leave?
Why didn’t you scream?
The questions are endless.
But notice
what question is missing.
Why did he do it?
Instead the burden falls
on the person already carrying trauma.
And girls everywhere are watching.
Watching survivors be doubted.
Watching institutions protect themselves.
Watching truth
get buried under procedure.
And they learn the quiet lesson:
Silence is safer.
We should be protecting
the vulnerable,
the voiceless,
And the victims.
We should be protecting
the girl who walks into the office
with fear sitting in her throat
and truth clutched in her hands
like something fragile.
Instead
we interrogate her pain,
scrutinize her memory,
and call it procedure.
But protecting the vulnerable
should not be radical.
Believing victims
should not be controversial.
And listening to truth
should not require courage.
Yet somehow,
in this system
it does.
I was left with nothing.
Nothing but the echo of my own voice and the trauma he gave me.
I couldn't sleep for weeks.
I kept waking up unable to breathe,
Mid-panic-attack,
I had flashbacks, real flashbacks, to
Hands that weren't there, still touching me.
(see pt 3)
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
This is part two of my poem, so if you haven't already, go ahead and read that one first. It will make much more sense.
All the love,
-Kaleigh <3
And so even in accidents,
even in mistakes,
there is a choice:
to feed the fire with care,
to guide it,
to contain it,
or to leave it free to burn whatever surrounds it.
After that, the flame grows
into whatever it’s given:
Warmth.
Light.
Destruction.
Or something strong enough
to transform everything.
A spark…
small enough to hold in your hand.
A spark…
bright enough to light a table,
a camp,
a life,
a movement.
A spark…
bright enough to ignite change
or leave everything in ash.
So I ask you:
What will you feed it?
What will you choose to burn?
Because fire—
like anger,
like courage,
like hope—
answers only to the hands
that strike the match.
The power is never in the fire itself.
The power
is in the hands
that dare
to strike the match.
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
I call my mind a palace the way people call storms “weather,”
Like a softer word might keep it from doing so much damage.
If I say palace,
I get chandeliers instead of bars,
vaulted ceilings instead of a sentence that lasts my whole life.
It’s cold here.
Not dramatically-not the kind of cold that makes one beg for rescue.
Just the kind that settles in and never leaves.
Visitors underestimate it.
They always do.
They step inside glowing, certain that warmth is contagious, and leave rubbing their arms like the air betrayed them.
I don’t chase those who leave.
I’ve learned that running only feeds the echo.
The floors remember every footstep, the walls replay every doubt, and the silence has a way of sounding like judgment if you listen too long.
I tell myself it’s not a prison, because prisons don’t bother with beauty.
They don’t polish marble or let light collect on staircases like it’s thinking about staying.
They don’t give you rooms you can get lost in without ever technically leaving.
Still, I know the truth of it— that there’s no exit sign that actually means escape.
That this is where I will live my whole life, learning which doors stick, which thoughts frost over by morning, and which halls are too dark to go through, lest I never come out.
——
There is a garden.
It’s not obvious. You wouldn’t stumble into it by accident.
You have to want quiet more than answers, have to stop trying to prove you’re survivable.
The air changes there— not warmer, just kinder, softer.
Snapdragons crowd the paths, petals stacked like careful defenses,
Bright enough to distract from whatever shape hides beneath.
Dahlia grows wrapped in on herself, leaf over leaf, as if tenderness is something you earn access to slowly.
No one really knows what those flowers look like unguarded, and no one demands to.
In the garden, I don’t have to translate myself.
I don’t apologize for the cold or promise it will pass.
I just exist the way protected things do— intact, unreachable, alive.
Maybe that’s why I stay.
Not because the palace is kind,
But because it learned how to make room for something soft.
Because even frozen places can grow things that know how to endure.
I don’t need to love it here.
I just need one place that doesn’t ask me to leave myself behind.
One garden that understands why so many petals might be necessary,
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
The moment you admit it—
everything gets heavier.
Not lighter.
It's not freeing.
It gets heavier.
Because now
you can’t pretend that you don’t see it.
You notice it
in every conversation
because they all feel rehearsed.
Every smile that doesn’t quite reach
where it used to.
Every version of yourself
you built just to survive—
now standing in front of you
like strangers
wearing your face.
And the worst part?
Some of them worked.
These versions of you-
They kept you safe.
They kept you loved.
They kept you from falling apart
when falling apart
was all you wanted to do.
So now,
you have to choose—
between the life
that protected you
and the truth
that might destroy you.
And no one tells you
how lonely it is
to choose the truth anyway.
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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Kaleigh Jae Poem
I can see him sitting across the room
my boyfriend,
which still feels weird to say sometimes
he’s laughing
it’s not even loud,
but it changes the room a little.
Like the world relaxes around him.
Am I the only one who sees it?
his hands are moving when he talks-
tapping the table.
He’s got some rhythm going
that I can't quite place.
sometimes I take his hand
just to feel that rhythm line up with mine
he smiles at me;
and there’s a small pause
before he says anything
like he’s holding the words in for a second
turning them over, over, and over in his mind.
Making sure they’re perfect before they're sent out
I’ve started noticing those things-
the way he tilts his head
the way he looks at me
the way he smiles when I say his name
he notices things
a leaf stuck on my dogs' face
a bird sitting on a wire
the way the light hits that wall
that cat sitting by the salon downtown, "look[ing] lonely"
normal things
that somehow don’t feel normal
when he points them out
I've started noticing them too, I don’t know when that happened
he’s thoughtful in a way
that doesn’t feel forced,
or calculated
like when he checks in on me
before I even realize I need it
or when he remembers something small that
I didn’t think mattered
No one really does that.
not for me
He’s patient,
gentle,
careful
kind
and I don’t think he realizes
how rare that is.
Do you know how terrifying that is
to be around someone like that
like they could just
change how you feel about everything
without even trying
when he takes my hand,
it’s warm,
his touch soft,
and I don’t feel like I have to explain myself,
which is new.
He makes space for me
without making it a big deal
just… does it
he notices when I’m anxious
before I do
laughs at things I didn’t mean to be funny
pays attention
like it actually means something to him
like I actually mean something to him
he does that for everyone
that might be my favorite part
the way he listens
the way he shows up
like whoever he’s with matters more than anything else in that moment
everything feels a little different
when he’s around
Lighter.
Not in an artificial way.
things just make more sense
even the quiet
when we’re not talking,
and he’s just looking out a window
or noticing something small again
and I’m there, just
looking at him
feeling weirdly okay, and
almost
normal
like maybe I don’t have to try so hard.
He’s ordinary.
I know that
but it doesn’t feel like it.
Not from here
not when everything in my life
feels like magic
just because he’s in it
Copyright © Kaleigh Jae | Year Posted 2026
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