I have spent my life making room. I have shrunk to the corners and folded myself into neat, forgettable shapes so that others could expand. I’ve swallowed my voice like bitter medicine, convinced that silence was a virtue, that bending until I break was some kind of holy act.
I have built palaces out of my patience. I have given away warmth without ever keeping enough to light my own hands. And when I finally sat in the empty house I had built, I realized—no one had ever asked me to.
The echo in my chest is my name, spoken too softly, too late.
