I Was Their Property. Now I’m Their Apocalypse

They forged chains. I forged fire. I’m the reckoning they never saw coming.

“No man will ever want you.”

That’s what my biological father told me.
Sweet, right?
A real poet of destruction.

I was sixteen. My chest wasn’t “developed enough,” my hips didn’t curve, and I had no idea what a hip-dip even was, only that I was apparently supposed to be ashamed I didn’t have one.
They called me a skinny rake, something to be fixed, filled out, made acceptable for male consumption.

“A man needs something to grab onto.”
That was the lesson: my value lived in my body.
Not my mind. Not my voice.
Just my shape,and how much of it I could offer.

My hair? It was a symbol of submission. It fell to my knees, untouched by scissors, praised for being thick “like a rope.”
Because that’s what mattered, whether a man could grab it.

I was told again and again:
“A woman with short hair is rebellious. Masculine. Unwanted.”

So I kept it long. I suffered the migraines, the sweat, the heaviness, because that’s what “good girls” did.
I gave them everything. My silence. My body. My obedience.

And still, they broke me.

I sacrificed everything they asked of me and it was never enough.
I followed every rule and was still punished.

Because that’s the thing about control, it doesn’t stop when you behave.
It stops when you break the cycle.

And that’s exactly what I’ve done.

Leaving a high-control system isn’t just walking into a store and buying pants.
It starts with asking, Who am I?

It’s not just hearing your voice, it’s believing it.
Not just having thoughts, but learning how to form them.
Not just having a body, but realizing it’s yours. Entirely yours

It’s refusing to be polite about your freedom.
It’s losing people who only loved the version of you they controlled.
It’s waking up at 2am with your heart pounding because scripture is still echoing in your head.
It’s doing things you were told would send you to hell, and realizing you’re not burning. You’re alive.

Seven years out and I still hear the sermons in my head.
I still get flashbacks when I choose myself.
But I won't stop.

I keep running.
I keep reclaiming.

And yesterday, I did something massive.
I cut off my hair. All of it. Pixie style.

And I’ve never felt more powerful, more feminine, more ME.
This wasn’t just a haircut, it was an exorcism.
A reset.
A declaration.

I am not your good girl.
I am not your puppet.
I am not your offering.

And I don’t submit to anyone unless it is in my pleasure.

To the patriarchs who tried to shape me into something small, silent, and suffering:
You failed.

You didn’t raise a wife.
You raised a wildfire.

You didn’t break me.
You built the woman who would burn it all down.

I am not here for your approval.
I am not here to be wanted.
I am here to live loud, free, and unapologetically whole.

I am a phoenix.
And I didn’t just rise.
I scorch the ground behind me