Permission 

Theme: The Things I Couldn’t Say 

I didn’t ask for much—just the space to breathe and the quiet to be. But sometimes silence feels like a weight, and waiting feels like hunger. So I filled the gaps with what I could: a smile, a glance, a touch, hoping you’d hear what wasn’t said. I offered fragments—pieces that felt safe enough for you to hold, but never too much, because I feared losing myself in your hands. 

There’s a quiet rebellion in how I hold back, as if the parts I guard are the ones that are most real. The ones I’ve learned to protect from a world that doesn’t always ask, only takes. I was taught to wear masks, to twist and bend, to become what was expected so I could fit in without breaking. But even then, there was always a whisper beneath it all—a truth that wouldn’t quiet down. 

I didn’t always speak it, but it carved itself into my bones and taught me how to survive without forgetting who I really was. Trust became a lesson I learned in pieces, torn between the love I wanted and the silence I was trained to wear. I let people in—but only so far. Never enough to see the parts that bled without warning. 

They told me to speak up—but only when it was safe for them. Only when my words could be swallowed whole and never spit back out. And I feel lost in silence, like a stranger in my own skin. Even when they called this place home, it never really felt like mine. They said I was seen, but it was never the real me—only the pieces they could tolerate. Only what fit into their idea of who I was supposed to be. 

But I’m taking my power back now. Piece by piece. Letting the truth spill, even if it’s messy. Even if it’s loud. They wanted me to shrink, to become less than what I am—but the quiet was never my true form. It was only a 

shell, a place to hide while I gathered the pieces of myself they couldn’t take away.

I was always whole—even when they couldn’t see it. And now, I speak in the spaces where they tried to silence me. I take up all the room I was told I couldn’t have. And the parts they tried to bury? They bloom now—louder than the silence ever was. This is only the beginning.