The first time I came home
with wet cheeks and trembling hands,
I carried the shape of hurt
in a language I didn’t yet know.
You listened—
or maybe you didn’t—
and said only this:
fight back,
you are on your own.
I thought it was strength
you were handing me.
I didn’t know
it was absence.
So I learned—
first grade, second, third—
how to make my small body loud,
how to build fists out of fear,
how to swallow tears before they were seen.
I stood alone
because I was told to.
I survived
because I had to.
And somewhere in those years,
something inside me hardened—
not into armor,
but into distance.
Now I am grown,
and love stands in front of me
with open hands,
soft voice,
gentle eyes—
and I do not know
how to step forward.
To lean feels unnatural,
like gravity reversed.
To ask feels unbearable,
like peeling skin from bone.
So I stand here—
wanting to be held,
aching to be known,
yet flinching at warmth
as if it might burn.
I protest love
before it can leave me.
I turn away
before it can fail.
Because somewhere deep inside,
a child is still listening
to the only truth she was given:
you are on your own.
And I wonder—
how do I unlearn survival
when it is the only way
I know how to live?
How do I soften
without breaking open
all the wounds
that taught me how to stay alive?
Jia Zhenia 