I am still standing, still rising, still more than they ever imagined.

I’m a good person, just damaged from being good to the wrong people. But that’s not the whole truth. The heart bruises, yes, but it does not rot from giving.

I stood with open hands, and they mistook the offering for weakness. I spoke with kindness, and they answered with lust, harshness, thirst, and hunger, thinking gentleness and generosity were wounds to be exploited.

But the wrong people are damaged from losing a good person, and that sorrow belongs to them, not to me. It’s not my burden to carry their inability to love. It is not my fault that their hands fumbled a treasure they did not recognize. I am the one who stayed soft when the world tried to petrify me. I am the one who kept believing that light was still worth pouring out, even when I was in the darkest of voids. And that will help me heal, stitching my brokenness into something finer than before. I am not ruined; I will be re-made, wiser and still capable of joy. I am a phoenix who laughs at the ash.

They lost something rare and beautiful, but I have not lost myself. I am a kind and good person, and that kindness and goodness will outlast every wound they tried to inflict.