MarieCares966

I annihilated myself to survive.

Unapologetically graceful, I honed my rage from a sword to a shield. Reflecting like a mirror, like a chameleon, I blended into my violent surroundings, masking my deepest wounds in a veil of infinite compassion.

By age 14, I chose to believe the excuse that we’re all just children — struggling for understanding, searching for some unknown source of love, or what we’re told love is. By 15, that belief calcified into a cancer: suicidal thoughts and a depression so deep it swallowed my voice. Then I found a magic pill — neurolinguistic programming. I began reprogramming my mind to survive. But my filters were flawed. I dimmed my light to avoid blinding others… instead of using it to illuminate the way.

I stunted my voice to avoid disruption and buried my truth deep within. I told myself it was kindness — that restraint was wisdom, that patience was divine. It wasn’t kindness. It was compression. It wasn’t patience. It was self-erasure. I didn’t want to hurt anyone with my fire… so I swallowed it. And called it light.

I spoke up at age 37 — and was literally cut down. A botched surgery stole my physical voice. I clawed back a half-voice through singing prayers, chiropractic alignment, and speech therapy. I resigned myself to a life of compassionate service, mistaking sacrifice for safety. At 41, my sovereignty earned me disownment from my biological family. I reinvented myself professionally again and again — only to be gaslit, replaced, and homeless by 45. By 50, I rebuilt myself again… and then I ruptured.

I realized I wasn’t protecting others — I was protecting my past. My inner child was called crazy. My teenage years, too much. My adult life, a practice in sacred silence. But here I am, writing in rebellion — to exorcise the version of me I trained to disappear.

I will no longer diminish my passion into poetic restraint. Energetically exhausted from self-regulation, I reclaim my sovereignty, my birthright, my voice. I rise a flame. A beacon in life’s jungle — guided by faith and intuition, turning every challenge into a doorway.

It was called grace, compassion, and forgiveness. It was self-annihilation. A self-inflicted harm that leaves no scars, just silence. I wore the face of patience, of professionalism, of spiritual maturity — yet underneath, I was disappearing in grief. There was no violence, only a thousand small betrayals of my voice, my timing, and my truth. I made it elegant. I made it sacred. It was still erasure. And now, I am ready to survive myself.

My half-voice transmits through the tapestry of life.
I remember my own name — I am radiance.
What the shield once reflected now severs the culture of silence.
I build through frequency.
My resurrection is medicine — for me, and for those who transcend.

This is the moment I stop surviving my own silence.
For every voice that trembled through survival, I am already listening.
Reclaimed. Reimagined. Released.
We sing.