Don’t Call Me a Victim

They found me

with open hands,

like someone still waiting

for a caress that never comes.

My heart was stitched

with fishing line

it held against the waves,

but not against your voice.

You said “you’re mine”

like one speaks to an object,

like one claims a body

that no longer has a name.

But I was a storm,

a mother, a sister, a lover,

a word that burns

on your silent lips.

You extinguished my gaze,

but I live in the eyes

of every woman building her future.

Now I walk barefoot

among the stars that resemble me,

and every woman who falls

carries me with her.

Don’t call me a victim.

I am the wound that speaks,

the bleeding rose,

the voice that remains.

(a poem for the women who don’t return)