Don't Tell Me To Be Strong Poem by WIN VENTURA

Don't…
Don't tell me to be strong
when I've held the sky on my shoulders
for decades —
and still smiled as if I was never breaking.

Don't say 'You'll be fine'
when you haven't walked barefoot
on the shattered glass of my past,
where every memory slices
but I still keep walking,
because what choice do I have?

They see my crafts,
but never the hands that bled.
They eat what I bake,
but never taste the ache
kneaded deep into the dough...
They wear what I knit,
but forget the nights I stitched through silence,
when loneliness wrapped tighter than any thread.

I gave.
Oh, how I gave.
To those who never knew
how to say thank you
without their mouths full.

Even my children —
the ones I carried in love and sleepless nights —
sometimes look at me like I'm a shadow,
and not the sun that warmed their world.

Still,
I don't curse them.
I just curse the mirror that shows me
how invisible I've become.

So don't tell me to smile.
Don't ask me to move on.
Let me cry if I need to —
let me burn if it cleanses.

Because this pain,
this tired, stubborn, bruised soul —
isn't weak.
I'm a survivor.

And even if no one claps when I dance in the rain,
even if no one reads what I write,
or values what I make…
know this:

I exist.

And I won't disappear quietly.


By: - WIN VENTURA