Erased in Ink, Crowned in Ash

They wrote me out

like I was a typo in their story,

ink scratched thin,

name swallowed by margins.

I learned the shape of silence

in rooms that used to echo me.

Learned how absence feels

when it’s forced, not chosen.

They built their little bucket—

rusted, crowded, loud with claws

each grip a warning:

stay small, stay here, stay ours.

But I am not theirs.

I am the thing that survives deletion,

a ghost in the code,

a heartbeat under crossed-out lines.

Every hand that pulled me down

taught me where not to stand.

Every voice that erased me

left space to become louder.

So I climbed

not clean, not kind, not soft

but certain.

Now I write in permanent ink,

in fire, in sky, in scars that gleam

and from the top,

their bucket looks exactly

like what it always was:

too small

to ever hold me.