Poem: The Unmaking

I am the breaking of the chain,
The whispered no, the sacred flame.
Born not to carry all their pain,
But to feel it, heal it, rise again.

They taught me silence, taught me shame,
But in my bones still burned my name.
Buried under roles and rules—
A wild truth they could not school.

I held the grief of mothers’ hands,
Of fathers lost to war-torn lands.
Inherited a lineage tight,
Of trauma wrapped in quiet night.

But I was never meant to be
A vessel for their wounded legacy.
I came to crack what they concealed,
To bleed the poison, not to yield.

So I turned inward, slow and brave,
To face the ghosts they never faced.
The rage, the guilt, the bound desire—
I let them speak, I walked through fire.

I met my shadow not with hate,
But with a lantern and with grace.
Each monster was a child unmet,
Each judgment was a past regret.

And deep beneath the noise and scar,
I found the wound that shaped the war—
The lie that I was not enough,
That love was earned, that I was tough.

But I am softness, I am screaming,
I am the void between the dream.
Both masculine and moonlit womb,
A rising sun within the tomb.

So now I shed, and shed again,
Old skins, old names, old phantom friends.
And in their place, I plant the seed
Of who I am beneath the need.

No longer slave to coded fears,
I hold my soul with crystal tears.
I let her dance, I let him cry,
I let the past dissolve and die.

And from that death, a truth is born:
Not broken, not ashamed, not torn—
But whole, and holy, fierce and free—
The soul they tried to steal from me.

Thank-you for reading.

Much Love and Light,

Brenda Marie Fluharty