Marrow and Memory

I learned to bend,

to fold myself into corners of rooms

where the light never reached,

to speak in tones too soft to anger,

too gentle to draw attention,

yet loud enough to claim the small scraps

of love that fell in jagged pieces.

The world saw a dutiful child,

a mirror polished, smiling,

never asking the questions

that would expose the cracks

in the walls of our house,

the floors that shivered under neglect,

the echoes of a mother’s fury

and a father’s absence,

the hunger that was never named.

I became a guardian

without armor, yet unyielding—

a shelter of whispered promises,

a hand always on the shoulder

of siblings, children, the small lives

entrusted to my keeping.

I learned the disguises of survival:

politeness where rage wanted to bloom,

obedience where rebellion burned,

kindness where cruelty thrived.

Yet beneath the veil,

there is fire that will not relent.

The marrow remembers every strike,

every neglect, every desperate plea

for a love that never came whole.

I carry it quietly,

a second skeleton behind my own,

its bones humming with the memory

of all I could not say,

of all I must protect.

Sometimes I stare into the mirror

and meet myself in fragments,

some tender, some scarred,

some hiding the truth

that I alone have had to hold.

Yet the shadows are not mine alone—

they are the map,

the forge, the inheritance

of all who are made

in the desperate pursuit of being loved.

And in this quiet, stoic haunt,

I hold my children close,

my siblings closer,

and whisper the truths

that cannot be spoken aloud:

I survived.

I endure.

I am the keeper of what was broken,

and the light that still will not die.