This One Was Hard to Write...

Some stories don’t leave your body quietly. They claw their way out—loud, messy, and on their own terms.

She Was 19 was one of the hardest pieces I’ve ever written. Not because I didn’t know what to say. But because saying it—finally, fully, out loud—meant I could never go back to pretending it didn’t happen.

This poem wasn’t about closure. It was about cracking. About the exact moment silence turned into survival.

Here’s the excerpt:

She was 19 when the words broke through her throat like floodwater—after years of hiding the truth between her ribs and under her tongue.

Nineteen—when the silence turned into a scream, and she stopped protecting everyone but herself.

She wasn’t trying to be brave. She was breaking. And when you’re breaking, sometimes the only thing left to do is tell the damn truth.

She said it out loud—what happened. Who did it. When.

And nobody knew what to do with her sudden courage—like grief had slipped in through the back door and made itself a chair at the table of her becoming.

She had carried it for so long she thought it was part of her spine. Tension was her resting state. Silence, her native language. Shame—the weight she wore like a second skin.

But 19 was the year she set fire to pretending. The year she stopped worrying what it would cost them to finally hear her truth. The year she stood in the mirror—and didn’t flinch.

This isn’t a story of heroism. It’s a story of survival.

A girl who snapped in half and bled her way into womanhood.

A girl who decided her healing mattered—even if her voice made the family uncomfortable.

A girl who lived through it—and then told it. Out loud. On purpose. Anyway.

There are moments that define us. This was mine.

If She Was 19 speaks to something inside you, just know—you’re not the only one who had to break to finally breathe.

We all have our struggles, but it is through these experiences that we grow and discover who we truly are.

Keep moving forward, and let your light shine bright.