08/20/2025
💛 When she flinches, I remember.
A hand reaches for her mouth.
She tilts her head away —
but the bit is slid in anyway.
Her body is no longer hers.
I know that feeling.
The air shifts.
The body remembers before the mind can speak.
They call her willing when she obeys.
Difficult when she resists.
I have worn those words too.
They speak over her as though she isn’t there —
as though her breath doesn’t matter,
as though the tension in her body is just “resistance to be broken.”
“She just needs to learn who’s boss.”
“She has to respect you.”
I’ve heard those words,
with different nouns, in different rooms.
She has been taught that safety lies in compliance.
So have I.
When she freezes under a touch she cannot escape,
I feel the tightness in my own chest.
When she tests the rope and finds no slack,
I feel the limits I’ve been told not to push.
Her story and mine are not the same —
but the echoes are familiar.
And when I fight for her right to move without fear,
to speak without punishment,
I am also fighting for my own.
