Anonymous Umbra

Why me?

Why this room with no exits?

Why this chorus of knives,

these shadows that mimic my voice

and repeat my worst fears

until they sound like truth?

Every step I take

echoes back—

too loud, too much, too fragile, too wrong.

I shrink,

trying not to disturb the silence

that was never silence at all—

just judgment,

pressed like a boulder to my chest.

I felt their eyes before I saw them.

Felt their words

slice across my throat

while smiling through their teeth.

Polite poison.

A laugh at my expense.

A comment they’ll forget,

but I’ll bleed from forever.

I screamed for help—

but all I heard was my voice

boomeranging back,

mocking me.

And then—

like pain crowning into purpose,

like birth in the middle of dying—

I remembered.

I have a light inside.

Not a candle.

Not a flicker.

But a wildfire that refuses to die.

It lit the room.

Lit the exits.

Lit the parts of me I thought I’d buried.

Turns out, I was never trapped.

Just lied to.

Just blinded.

I found the keys.

They were always mine.

Hidden beneath the shame others handed me

and called my name.

Now?

Now I walk in light.

Let them whisper.

Let them stare.

Let them choke on the narrative they wrote for me.

I’ll give them something real to talk about.

I stay

for the joy that fits my soul like skin.

I stay

for the ones who speak truth with love.

I stay

because someone out there

feels like I did—

and they need to hear: you’re not alone.

I stay

because my fight isn’t finished.

Because my story matters.

Because I have work,

laughter,

fire left to give.

I stay another day

not to survive—

but to live.

And to remind the world:

You don’t get to extinguish me.