Voice Residue

There were nights I screamed so loud

the stars flinched—

not out of fear, but recognition.

Pain had made a home in my bones,

quiet as a tenant who pays in silence,

loud only when I tried to sleep.

I’ve been dragged through fires

that never asked my name,

bruised by wars I didn’t start

but somehow inherited.

There were days the weight of grief

felt heavier than God’s own sky,

and still, I did not dissolve.

Not because I was brave,

or born of some steel-spined resolve—

but because the world kept breaking

in the same shape as me.

And what kind of cruelty would it be

to have survived all that and fall silent

just when the world needed

someone to say:

I see you.

I know.

I won’t let this pass unseen.

So no, I did not lose my voice.

I buried it for a time

beneath rubble, beneath fear,

but it kept pulsing like a second heart.

And when I dug it out, it trembled—

but it did not fail.

I speak, not because I’m untouched,

but because I am.

And what bleeds

knows how to name

what bleeds.

I wasn’t supposed to have a voice left.

But the world

kept giving me

one more reason to use it.