“Still Standing, Still Flame” By MissT

I’ve crawled through years that never said sorry,
Wore bruises like badges, not by choice, but by battle.
I’ve been the girl with the stitched-up smile,
Serving tea to chaos,
Carrying silence like a sacrament.

They told me to hush.
So I howled inside.
In homes where love had teeth,
And the fists were folded in prayer.

I wore the rings.
Buried the truths.
Held children on hips
While the world fell from mine.

I’ve danced for crumbs
In the name of ‘wife’, ‘mother’, ‘good girl’,
Twisting myself into knots
While pretending I was a ribbon.

I’ve stood in courtrooms,
In kitchens full of ghosts,
In bedrooms where the walls knew too much.
I’ve been called damaged.
I took the name.
Etched it into armour.

But I never stayed broken.

Now?
Now I rise with a back that doesn’t bend.
A mouth that doesn’t whisper
When it’s meant to roar.

I’m the fire, not the ash.
The author, not the footnote.
The storm they said would swallow me—
I became it.

So if you’re looking for the girl I used to be,
She’s gone.
But she left a trail of red thread
That stitched me into this:
A woman unshamed, unafraid,
And utterly
Unfuckwithable.