Still She Remains Poem by Jamuna Z

They don't see me—
not the bones beneath this smile,
not the screams I stitched beneath my skin.

I was told to be soft.
*Soft? *
They wanted softness so they could crush it
and blame me for turning to stone.

They said,
'Sit down. Smile more. Be less.'
And I tried.
Dear God, I tried—
until my spine bent like a bowstring
and my silence became a battlefield.

Every morning,
I woke to war.

A war against mirrors.
Against clocks.
Against the mouths of men
who loved me only in pieces.

I was never whole enough for them.
Too loud. Too wild. Too tired. Too much.
*Too much*—
is what they call a woman who refuses to die quietly.

I wore roles like shackles:
Daughter. Caretaker. Lover.
Pretty little cage after cage
after cage.

They carved futures into my flesh
that I did not choose.
They told me I was lucky—
while I drowned in rooms that smelled like sacrifice.

But oh—
'I changed.'
I broke.
I burned.
And from the ashes of who they needed me to be,
I rose.

Ugly. Beautiful. Raging.
*Alive.*

I am not some fragile bloom.
I am thunder wearing skin.
I am the silence after betrayal
and the howl that follows it.

Do I lament?
Yes.
I mourn the girl I buried in order to survive.
I weep for the years I was holy only when empty.

But don't mistake my grief for regret.
I would set the whole world ablaze again
to reclaim the fire in my own name.

This body? This voice?
It is no longer for their comfort.
It is for me.
And for every woman who thought survival meant silence.

I am not what they made of me.
I am what rose after.

And still—
'I remain.'