The Lantern Made of Me

I was born from ashes, silent storms,

the kind that shapes a girl in forms

of silence, steel, and memory,

a lantern stitched from what broke me.

It burned behind my ribcage walls,

through preacher’s hymns and drunken calls,

through courtroom lies and bedroom wars,

through nights I slept on cold wood floors.

It flickered low in houses dim,

where love was law and light was sin.

Where hands could heal, or hands could break,

and I learned fast what pain could take.

I carried it through every place

They said I’d never leave in grace,

through needles, bottles, whispered names,

through men who mistook love for chains.

But somehow, still, that light remained.

Even when my own reflection

spoke in fractured recollection,

still it glowed, defiant flame,

calling softly through the shame:

Keep walking, girl. You’re not to blame.

It hums now in my daughter’s breath,

the hush that outshines fear and death.

In my husband’s hand that doesn’t let go,

in every dawn that starts out slow.

This light...

it isn’t Mercy’s gift.

It’s the weight I learned to lift.

It’s every “no” that turned to “live.”

It’s proof that hell can’t have the final word to give.

I am the lantern I once sought.

Cracked, but holy, smoke and thought.

A keeper of ghosts who never leave,

yet burn beside me,

and help me breathe.

So, if you see me in the dark,

Don’t call it broken, call it spark.

For I’m not what I survived, you see,

I’m the Lantern that lights up,

Despite the darkness that still follows me.