“The Price of Being Good”
I stood where silence screamed,
where truth was weighed like a crime,
and kindness was mistaken for weakness.
They told me to smile
while they carved words into my back,
each whisper sharper than steel.
I learned to bow,
not out of respect—
but to protect the fire still burning inside me.
Every time I fell,
I rose again,
not to prove I could,
but to remind myself I still exist.
I gave without asking,
worked without witness,
bled without noise—
yet they measured me in rumors.
But listen—
one day, when I walk away,
they’ll realize
it wasn’t obedience that kept me—
it was endurance.
And endurance, my friend,
isn’t weakness.
It’s the quiet roar of someone
who has lost everything—
but never their soul.
