let me tell you about being alone

not the kind you think of.
not missing someone in your bed.
not a quiet night in an empty room.

i mean the kind of alone
where there’s no father with a toolbox,
no brother with a truck—
(or who gives a fuck)
no friend who says,
of course, girl — what do you need?

the kind of alone
where there’s no neighbor to call,
no one in driving distance who even notices you’re missing.
where you fucking hate having to ask for help—
because:
it’s a favor,
a burden,
a negotiation.

where getting a flat tire isn’t a bad day —
it’s a risk assessment.
it’s standing on the side of the road, praying
the strangers you have to interact with are safe —
because you’re alone with a baby.

where holidays aren’t just lonely —
they are loud,
screaming at you through every window,
full of other people’s families.
and you’re just sitting there,
watching yourself not belong anywhere.
pretending whatever you glued together is enough.

the kind of alone
where every small breakdown
is a sermon about how optional you are.

i have lived my whole life like this.
but this is the first time i stopped pretending otherwise.

because honestly,
i've always been surrounded.
just not caught.
just not included.

they orbit when you shine.
they love your glow.
they swear they’d catch you if you ever fell.

but stay dark for longer than three minutes —
and you’re heavy.
too much.
too messy.
too much of a reminder of the shit they’re scared could happen to them too—
if they were truly alone.

because you made this bed for yourself, didn’t you?

so you learn to laugh it off.
you learn to need less.
you learn to say, it's okay, i got it.

because if you don't —
you watch the way people look at you.
like you’re already dead weight.
like they were never really planning to be there.

and the sickest part is:
if i disappeared,
if something happened,
it might take a day.
two.
longer.
before anyone even noticed my silence.
before anyone worried about my dog.
or my daughter.

this is not romance loneliness.
this is survival loneliness.
the kind you have to bleed through at night,
so your kid doesn’t sense the silence it leaves behind.

i don’t romanticize it.
i don’t call it strength.

but we are still here.
somehow.

not because it’s beautiful.
not because it’s noble.
but because no one ever should have had to do this alone.

and yet here we are.

ii. letters i should never write — to the woman who had my last name first:

sometimes i think about you.
not because he made you a threat.
not because of jealousy.
but because i questioned what happened.

i saw the man that came to me.
the rot.
the confusion.
the mask that slipped only when no one else was looking.
(the cruelty.)

and i thought—
maybe only i could see it.
maybe that meant i could fix it.
maybe it would be different.

but i should’ve known.
i should’ve read between the lines of your silence.
the absence of details.
the things that didn’t quite add up.
the things that were too neatly erased.

i heard the whispers.
the ones people say in low voices
so they don’t have to say them all the way.

but now i understand:
he didn’t love either of us.
(i think it was the one in between / irrelevant.)
but truthfully—
he never loved himself.

i got your letters.
from the church.
the ones asking to dissolve what god had supposedly bound.
i read them.
even the accusations.
some were harsh.
(maybe unnecessary.)
but some haunted me.
because i know you weren’t lying.

and even in the slander—
i believed you.
every word.

i still would’ve protected him.
not because i didn’t believe you.
but because i knew what he was,
and still wanted him to be better.

i’m not religious.
but i am here to tell you:
i heard you.
i see you.

and some things that are supposed to be holy break.

but i’m proud of you.
it wasn’t okay.

and i’m sorry your dream fell apart.
i’m sorry for what was promised
and never delivered.

because the truth is—
he never had a dream.
just pain,
and delusion,
and a black hole of secrets.

i don’t know if we ever really knew him.
but we both tried to.
and we both lost.

i’m sorry what you had with him died.
what i had did too.
and the man we knew?
he lives on like a ghost.

but i wanted you to know—
i believe you.
and i know what it cost you to survive him.

i. letters i should never write— to my father (but really, to the boy you were):

i’m not writing to the man.
that man is dead to me.
this is for the boy.
the child still trapped inside the monster you became.

i forgive you.
not because you deserve it,
but because i know what happened.

i’m sorry life was cruel to you before you had words for it.
i’m sorry no one kept you safe.
i’m sorry the lights went out and no one came.
i’m sorry you wandered the streets as a kid,
looking for a floor that wouldn’t kick you.
i’m sorry you were hungry.
cold.
forgotten.
i’m sorry you weren’t held more.
that your mother left.
that you became hard when what you needed was softness.

i’m sorry for the horrors you definitely saw
and the dreams that died before you even learned to dream.

but here’s the part i’ll never say out loud:
it’s true.
i leave you.
and yes—forever.

not because i stopped loving you.
but because you wouldn’t stop bleeding on me
from wounds you refused to heal.
you stabbed me with the same blade that made you.
and one day, i finally pulled it out
and said:
no more.

you didn’t get out.
i tried to drag you out.
but you wouldn’t come.

so i did what you couldn’t.
i got out.
i took the ghosts and turned them into light.

your granddaughter is safe.
she is warm.
she is fed.
she will never know what we survived.

and that’s the part i want you to know,
somewhere, in whatever broken cathedral your soul still haunts:
you didn’t get to finish the story.
but the ending is beautiful anyway.

we made it.
you didn’t.
but because of that—
we did.

you always came for me

i met her in the golden era of algorithms.
a blue-check siren call—handstands and hash-tagged divinity—
and me?
just a girl with calloused palms
and a vision nobody could see yet
in the back of a building no one could find.
but somehow,
she did.

she saw something in me—
not the broken, not the act, not the brand—
but the part that was feral, burning,
half-wild and half-willing to die trying.
she didn’t hesitate.
she co-signed the chaos.
showed up with the light and the ladder.
dragged me up.

she knew what it cost.
to open your ribcage in public,
to be the first girl to burn,
to talk about colonization in a room full of lululemon.
when the mob came, she didn’t look away.
she stood shoulder to shoulder with me,
white knuckles, open throat,
like a woman who knew exactly what it meant
to use her privilege as a weapon for, not against.

she saw through the trembling.
the hypervigilance.
the moments where i wanted to disappear into the floor.
and instead, she laid one down.
clean. soft.
said: “you can land here.”
and i did.

when i thought the world might spit me out,
she wrote the check.
sent the wire.
packed the bag.
scrubbed the floor.
made room.
i never had to ask.

she came from another orbit—
poised, patient, made of pause—
while i burned through cities with my teeth.
i was fire.
she was the calm that held it.

we didn’t speak the same native tongue,
but we spoke fluently in each other.
she let me rant about empires and power and patriarchy,
even when it wasn’t easy, even when it wasn’t hers.
we fought. we listened. we cried.
and cried.
and cried.

we’ve crossed more borders than some people cross streets.
slept on concrete, posed on sand,
cried in the jungle, and laughed
til we forgot who started the fight.
she’s the only person who ever took me anywhere
just because she wanted to.
no hidden agenda. no branding deal.
just us against the entire fucking world.

she’s the only one who ever said the word brilliant
without mockery.
without flattery.
like a fact.
like gravity.

we didn’t envy each other because we couldn’t.
we weren’t built the same.
we were forged for different wars.
and still—
we always knew when to carry the other
off the battlefield.

i don’t know what kind of cosmic contract we signed.
but i know this:
you never left me behind.
not once.
not when i was broke,
not when i was broken.
not when the whole damn world tried to silence me
and i was too tired to scream.

and i would do it all over again.
eight million times.
every war.
every floor.
every country.
every night we couldn’t sleep
because the truth was too loud
and the world was too stupid to hear it.

i’d do it all again
for you.

to everyone i begged to love me

when you grow up
without a family to surround you,
sometimes you learn
to walk through the world
asking people
if maybe, just maybe,
you could call them home.

i didn’t know
i was carrying that question.
not for a long time.

but i offered my heart
to anyone who’d hold it—
even if only for a moment.
i called the ache love.
i called the chaos care.

and every time they left,
i thought it was because
i hadn’t given enough.
that maybe
i just could have done something differently.

i mistook
momentary attention for affection.
crisis for closeness.
convenience for connection.
because when the people
who were supposed to love you
are the ones who forget you the fastest,
who wound you the deepest,
and who still call it love—
you learn to need less.
to rationalize.
to say "i understand why they did it"
while wiping the blood
off your own hands.

so i gave.

i gave everything.
my time.
my money.
my loyalty.
my forgiveness.
my softness.

i tried to prove
i was worth staying for.
worth choosing.
worth loving.

but the people i gave to?

they only came around
when they were empty.
they only stayed
when it benefited them.
and they only loved me
when i asked for nothing in return.

i stayed.

i knew what it was.
i saw the neglect.
i saw how you showed me cruelty
in ways i could never fathom
returning to you—
and i kept trying.

because maybe
if i just decoded your lack of empathy,
you’d come back.
maybe the friends i begged to be siblings,
the family i begged to notice me,
the lovers i begged to just see me—
maybe one of them would stay.
but they didn’t.

because really

i was just a fire
they loved to sit near
and leave once they felt warm.

i was never the destination.
just a detour.
a soft place to land
before they went back
to the people they’d always choose first.
the people that demanded more
and respected themselves.
and now?

i release you.

every person who took what i gave
and gave nothing back.
every person who called me family
when it was easy
and stranger when it wasn’t.
every person who made me prove my worth
while handing theirs out for free.
i don’t want your crumbs.
i don’t want your pity.
i don’t want to be remembered out of guilt.

if you ever want to know me again,
you’ll have to meet the version of me
who no longer bleeds for breadcrumbs.
who doesn’t soften so you can stay.
who doesn’t beg to be seen.
because i’m not angry.
i’m just awake.

i know now:
love doesn’t look like cruelty.
love doesn’t feel like fear.
love doesn’t disappear when it matters.
love doesn’t forget you
when you’re sitting
by yourself alone.
so i’m done chasing ghosts.
done explaining myself.
done pretending
this is anything other
than what it was.

i loved you.
and that should have been enough.
but it wasn’t.
because you never loved me.
you just loved
the proximity
to my glow.
but now i know better.
this isn’t bitterness.
it’s clarity.

and for the first time
in my life,
i’m choosing me.

and i’m okay
sitting alone.

the ghost you left inside me

(you’ll probably never read this, but if you do i hope you cry.)

here’s the truth i’ve never spoken out loud.

you intentionally killed her.
it wasn’t an accident.
it wasn’t a tragic mistake.
it was a choice.

you knew she existed.
and you wanted her gone.
so you made me suffer for bearing
the thing you had begged me for—
for eons.
for lifetimes.
with clarity.
with conviction.
for years.

and then you looked me in the face
and told me she couldn’t exist.
with anger like i did something wrong.
and even though you softened later—
you still left.
you still abandoned me.
and then you told them i was lying.
as i bled your child out
on the floor,
alone.

you stabbed me in the back—
so deeply that you hoped you’d cut far enough
into my body that she died along with me—
from the depths of your brutality.

and you did.
you won.
you killed her.

and while i lay in ancestrial ruins soaked in her blood:

you vanished.
you erased us.
you made me look insane—
for carrying the life you came to me and asked me to create.
and then tried to ruin me for believing you.

you begged me for a family.
you begged me to build a life.
you stared into my soul and told me
i was your home.
and the second that home took form,
you destroyed it.

you didn’t ask if i was okay.
you didn’t check if she made it.
you told her story to someone else
like it never even happened.
like i made her up.

but i didn’t.

i felt her.
saw the lines.
saw them fade.
she was real.
and you killed her.
because it was easier than facing your own wreckage.

my body broke
the stress and devastation ate me alive.
my womb collapsed
because your betrayal carved open my back
and stabbed through her heart.

i mother a ghost now.
while you pretend you never made her.

and i need you to hear this:
you killed your greatest miracle and spit on her grave.

and i know you don’t speak these things out loud.
because that would make them real.

and i don’t care who told you it was okay to do this.
i don’t care what version of the story you tried to get them to believe.
the truth is simple:

she died because you wanted me to suffer.
for giving you what you always wanted.

and one day,
you will look at a life you didn’t build.
at a daughter you never knew.
and realize:
you were the burial.
not the father.

and i hope that ruins you.
forever.

you won.
you got nothing.

i didn’t want to write this

(but you’re the reason women die)

not because i didn’t have the words.
but because your archetype is exhausting—
and fatal.

you play the victim so well,
you’ve started to believe yourself.
you cry about chaos while quietly setting every fire.

there is a rare and insidious type of woman who
uses the language of abuse not to escape danger, but to create it.
it’s not a cry for help—it’s a tactic.
not to be saved, but to stay centered.
not to escape, but to control.

but baby girl, i clocked you the moment i heard the narrative.
i know the high you get from weaponizing what should be sacrosanct.
it’s your favorite modus operandi— (google it girlie)
because as long as you’re the perpetual victim,
no one will get an accurate read on the manipulative, abusive villain you really are.

but i do.
i see you.

because women who are truly afraid?
they don’t move like that. (i know you don’t know.)
they don't play chess with the men they say they're afraid of.
they don’t risk late-night texts—
because that kind of shit can get you fucking killed.

you are not afraid.
you are the chaos.
and maybe there is a cycle of abuse—
but you’re the one pulling strings from the epicenter.

this isn’t survival.
this is theater.
it’s covert optics.
behind his back.
while he pays your rent.
feeds your babies.
and you cry to another man to come save you.

but baby, i see you.

you don’t want to leave.
you want a better option.

i know this because:
you don’t run when the door isn’t even locked—
and you have multiple exit plans.
not when being trapped earns you pity and attention.
not when chaos keeps you in control of the storyline.

but i fucking see you.
because some of us actually ran for our fucking lives.
we know that you will leave everything,
in the middle of the night.

you grab the babies.
and you run.
no fucking shoes if you have to.

you just run.

because sweetie,
i’ve almost died at the hands of men that love me.
and let me explain, we’re not the ones smiling biggest in the family photo ops.
because it’s blessed, right?
(or am i in the wrong script now?)

and I know the difference
between a woman in danger
and a woman who uses the language of danger
to avoid being seen for what she really is.

you aren’t scared.
you’re calculated.

you don’t want peace.
you want power.

you’re the type of woman who needs men to orbit you.
as you play them against each other,
just to feel the power that you can’t get without manipulation.

but always remember this:
you hold babies as hostages,
and while you play games,
they will be imprinted with the chaos you created.

because you’re not trapped.
you are the architect of self-created tragedy.

but i hope you understand the gravity of what you’re doing.
because it is lethal.

and they will call us liars as penance for you.
because you sucked the empathy out of people
who were too exhausted to listen
when we are actually fleeing for our fucking lives.

and focus for a second:
they will die because of you.

and honestly, the worst part is:
your children will still suffer.

because abuse does live in this home.
you’re just not the victim.


***For survivors who’ve had their truth disbelieved because of someone else’s bullshit.

*broken homes

they always say a home is broken
when someone leaves.

but the ones that stay—
silent, untouched, decaying from the inside—

those are the ones that terrify me.

staying for the kids.
staying for the convenience.
staying because splitting would finally reveal the truth.

some homes should crack.
some are begging to crack.

because sometimes the safest thing in the world
is a mother and a baby,
on their own,
making something holy out of ash.

i’ve felt more like a daughter
in the hugs and the tears that were wiped
by someone who found me later in life
than i ever did with the one who helped make me.

so no,
i don’t hesitate at the idea of building sideways.
love doesn’t require blood.
it just needs a pulse.

i’ve seen the light change on someone’s face
when they meet a child that isn’t theirs—
and feel everything click into place anyway.

because true love doesn’t live exclusively in biology.
it lives in being there.
it lives in the shoes you tie,
the bikes you help them ride,
the instinct to protect.

i’m not afraid of bunk beds and blended holidays.
of step-siblings and spare toothbrushes in someone else’s house.
i’m not afraid of loving children i didn’t create,
or being loved by people who arrived later and still became family.

that isn’t broken.
that’s brave.

That is, without a doubt,
the essence of true love—
not merely a sense of obligation.

It’s a conscious choice to share and amplify love,
reaching out to embrace even more people in its security.

i’ve always wanted that.
a home that full.

so this is the family i built—
no blueprint,
just the child i carried out of a storm.

and even if it’s quieter than i pictured—
even if it’s just us—
it’s still a home.

and it’s not broken.

but the door?
it stays open.

not for chaos.
not for the ghosts, not for the shallow kind of love.

but for the kind of love that stays.
the kind that shows up.
the kind that remembers.

because they’ll call this a broken home—
but there’s nothing broken
about a mother, a baby, and a dog
waking up in peace
with nothing to recover from.

it’s truthfully holy.

but i always welcome more.

P.S.

(and yes,
she would’ve been a girl.

and yes,
they all would’ve been sisters.
and yes,
we can still have bunk beds.)

if you’re out there, this is for you.

**if you see this you’ll know.
you’ll remember that december.

the moment the addiction stopped being a shadow
and became something i could name.

we made a pact that day—
i wasn't going to leave you there alone.

not because we were together.
(if you remember correctly, i went on a date that night.)
not even because we owed each other anything,
but because the demons were circling.

and in that moment,
i didn’t want you to be alone ever again.

i wanted to protect you from everything.
from all of it.
and for a little while,
we really tried.

but this isn’t a love story.
not anymore.

this is a vow.
because we didn’t speak them then.
so i’m saying them now.
(when they mean more.)

not as your wife.
not as your judge or jury.
but as the woman who now carries your name.
your bloodline.
your daughter.

never doubt this:
she will know who you are.

your name will never be a word she’s afraid to utter.

she will know what you endured—
and what you couldn’t.
she will know about your father—
how his death lived in your body longer than he ever got to.
how you built yourself into a man,
even when there was an emptiness you couldn’t fully describe.

she will know that war stayed inside of you.
long after your duty ended.
that service came at a cost.
that sometimes the demons moved faster than healing ever could.

she will know that you got yourself into spaces
that you never thought were meant for you.
(i’ll make sure she wears your ivy league colors with the same pride)
she’ll know you accomplished more things before she was born,
than men twice your age could ever dream of.

she will know that you loved her.
that you chose for her to enter this world.
and that even when you couldn’t stay,
you didn’t leave her.
you left a version of yourself you couldn’t survive being.

and i will never let her confuse collapse with abandonment.
i will make sure she knows the difference.

i know you’re probably angry.
because i wrote the truth.
because i named the darkness.
because i didn’t protect the illusion.

but i didn’t do it to punish you.
i did it to free you.
because what we didn’t say out loud nearly killed us.

and darling,
i know what it’s like to be the monster.
i know what it feels like to have PTSD overwrite your nervous system.
to scream into the void.
to burn something good down
just to see if the fire would make you feel alive.

but despite the damage,
you will always be redeemable.
you will always be her dad.
and forever be our family.

i promise you these specific things;
because you willingly helped me fulfill the only destiny i couldn’t live without.
and even if we never do this side by side—
even if someone else teaches her how to ride a bike,
or makes pancakes on sunday,
or sits in the front row of her school play—
you will not be erased.

even if you’re never there.

because she looks just like you.
and sometimes,
when she tilts her head a certain way
or laughs without warning—
you are in the room again.

and i hope one day you come home.
not to me. but forever to her.

so you can see what we made.
so you can see who she’s becoming.

because this is my sworn promise:
you can trust me.
you can trust me.

this is my vow.

and i will keep it.
every day.
for the rest of my life.

eulogy for the man who almost was

*I’ll try to be kind. A gentleness you never extended to me.

i’m writing this as a eulogy.
not for your body—
but for your soul.
for your heart.
for the version of you i trusted with my life.

because that man is gone.

when i saw you last,
you were playing with my daughter.
your eyes softened.
your voice changed.
and you looked up at me and said,
“you know i would be a good father.”

and i said,
“you already are one.”

because you are.
even if just in blood.
even if she never calls you it by name.

your greatest dream was of a family, a home—
as it’s rotting right in front of you.
you gave up on becoming a man with a spine.
and instead,
you became… this.
a hollow imitation.
a version stitched together by avoidance
and existing in the shadows of your own life.

who whispers through locked phones and late-night texts.
a secret to his own bloodline.

but i remember you when you were still climbing toward the light.
scared.
but brave.
terrified of becoming your pain,
but with qualities that inspired me.
you hated lies.
you always tried to be kind.
you were so deeply traumatized by cheating—
that the thought of it made you physically sick—
because you’d seen what it did.
you swore you wanted different.

but now?

you lie without flinching.
you vanish without consequence.
you are disloyal as a reflex.
you protect the people who use you—
and without hesitation,
you destroy the ones who would’ve stood by you forever.

you have chosen to hide instead of grow.
silence over integrity.
you built a cage inside of your own worst fears,
and then convinced yourself it was where you belonged.

you became a man who doesn’t fight.
not for his kid. not for the truth. not for himself.

and you don’t get to pretend you don’t know that.

because i knew you before this.
i saw how hard you tried to be better.
i saw you become softer in a world that told you not to be.
i watched you fall apart,
but i thought you’d come back.
i thought you’d return stronger,
with more conviction,
more clarity.

but instead,
you let your cowardice calcify.
and it’s too late now.

you’re not who you were.
you’re not who you could’ve been.
you are a walking shell of what almost was.
and that version of you—
the one i loved,
the one your daughter could’ve been proud of calling “dad”—
he’s dead.

and this?
this is his funeral.

i don’t hate you.
but i will never chase a ghost.
and i will never speak to you like there’s still a fire inside your chest.

because for the first time ever,
i see you differently now.
and i’ve buried the man i knew in the ground.
you killed him.
and you chose to live in his place,
as a hollow, forgettable thing.

no backbone. no truth. no courage.

just a man who almost became.
and then gave up.

you were never the plot.

you were the karmic plot twist no one asked for.
not pivotal.
not poetic.
just a terrible rewrite that tanked the storyline.

and the worst part?
you really thought that made you important.

i was over here surviving shit you wouldn’t last a week through—
grieving real love,
real loss,
real betrayal—
and you were behind the scenes auditioning for a role no one offered you.
quoting lines you ripped off someone you so desperately want to be.
trying to become relevant by manipulation tactics and jesus misquotes.

you feed on the garbage.
on power over people that never wanted you.
on fake glow-up arcs built off someone else's suffering.
you want to be seen as the one who won something,
but everyone knows it’s because no one else wanted what you got.
a role in a narrative that everyone begged you to exit.

you don’t heal bloodlines.
you demolish them.
poison them.
manipulate.
control.
and then you slap scripture on the whole thing like god co-signed your fucked up delusions.

you weaponized a whole ass life to try to keep someone who didn't even want you enough to take you seriously in the first place.
and then paraded around like you were the victim in some epic romance you never even had.

you watched me lose everything and that made you feel important.
because it was the closest thing to actually being me that you'd ever get.
and stealing something that was never meant for you—
that was sacred—
and used it like a knife under a throat
because your actual personality wasn’t good enough to lock it down within itself.

but let’s get it straight—
you were never the plot.

you’re just cosplaying a christian wife
as you breed children out of every single cardinal sin.
you’re the victim in a self-written sub-story we didn’t even want to hear.

you manipulate people so you can feel significant.
and sweetie, we see it.

you were the mistake during a spiral that no one could delete.
the fucked up twist that devastated whole eras.
the mid-season tragedy we all had to suffer through so the storyline could keep moving.

call it righteous,
call it healing,
call it god.
we both know what it really was:
a desperate pick-me moment that you use to torture entire lineages.
a rerun of a stereotype so insidious and predictable
that they write cautionary fictions about it.
and honestly,
you ruin lives just to feel something.

that’s not love.
that’s epic-level annihilation.

and it’s rotting you.

but i’m still here.
untouched.
funnier.
hotter.
terrifying.
calmly narrating the script you effectively hijacked.

still everything you tried to imitate.

and you’ll never be remembered for anything other than the role you forced yourself into—
when baby…
(i’m going to hold your hand when i say this and i want you to really hear it;)
you were always just the plot twist no one wanted to happen.

sweetheart, you are the generational curse.

hope it was worth it.

murder math

i’ve been doing math my whole fucking life.
not algebra.
not calculus.
murder math.
survival calculus.
the invisible equation you run before you open your mouth.

if i say this, do i die?
if i enforce child support—does he snap?
if i tell the truth—does he drive across the country?
if i stop pretending i was ever in love;
that maybe even it was never that deep for me—
do i end up a true crime?

because here’s the real equation:
half of femicide victims are killed after they leave.
seventy-five percent were stalked beforehand.

and still—i see the numbers.

so i do the math.
i always do the fucking math.
every time i speak.
every time i post.
every time i call them what they are.
every time i choose to be happy.

and still, i feel it—
right behind me.

people say i’m glowing now.
they say i look peaceful.
that single motherhood suits me.
that i’m brave.

and all i can think is:

this is me at my most killable.

404: file not found.

redacted.

404: file not found.

👻 refer to screenshot.

why i quit yoga: being a white girl when you hate white girls

i quit yoga because i was the colonizer in the room—
and i knew it.

it didn’t matter how many sanskrit words i could pronounce,
or how often i said i “respected the roots.”
i was still a white woman making money off something we stripped,
watered down,
and sold back to each other for $22 a class.
that’s the story. period.

i hated us.
white women in yoga.
the whole fucking bullshit performance.

i hated the pastel matching sets.
i hated when they said dumb shit like “yoga can save you,”
when they didn’t even know what yoga was.
like, actually, factually had zero fucking clue what it meant.

i hated the ganesh tapestries ordered off amazon.
i hated the seven-minute meditations posted to instagram.
i hated the random-ass buddha statues shoved into studio corners
because it "looked zen" or whatever the fuck.
cool decor.
zero context.

one time i watched a straight-up yoga "celebrity"
throw a temper tantrum
because an indian woman called her out for blatant appropriation.
and instead of taking accountability like a grown adult,
she cried,
weaponized her whiteness,
and got the commenter’s account banned.
like a bratty little baby.

(she blocked me after i talked shit about it.)

i hated that the more “advanced” someone looked online,
the more horrific they were in real life.
some of the most “globally known” yoga people?
actual garbage humans.
narcissists with crystals and press-ups.
but hey, great engagement.

i thought yoga made people good.
i really did.

i thought it would be my version of religion—
a place where people were actually working on themselves.
actually giving a shit.

then i met my yoga icons
and watched their ethics burn to the fucking ground.
most of them weren’t even good teachers.
some of them were straight-up bad teachers—
but they were hot, so whatever.
good at branding.
loud as hell.

meanwhile?
my mom taught me more real-world morals
than this whole fucking industry combined.
and i wasn’t about to drink the kool-aid
just because y’all looked cute in a matching set.
it’s actually giving self-absorbed & unhinged from reality.

i came to yoga because my soul was starving.
i was looking for something that might save me.

what i found?
white women making pinterest boards out of someone else’s culture,
wearing turbans,
chanting shit they clearly didn’t understand.

we turned a sacred, ancient spiritual practice
into a backdrop for reverse warrior and turmeric lattes.

we didn’t want to understand it.
we wanted to wear it.
so maybe we wouldn’t feel so fucking boring.

yes, i look like them.
i benefit from the same systems.
i know that.

but i’ve lived through shit
that would break some of these bitches in five seconds.
i couldn’t relate to their entitlement.
i couldn’t sit peacefully in a studio built to make them feel safe
while everything else was rotting underneath.

so i left.
i burned down the business i built
because i wasn’t going to keep pretending.

not because yoga isn’t real.
but because what we did to it is.

mysore was crazy.
i traveled with annoying girls
who thought they were on some spiritual journey
but were really just collecting content and weird exotic clout.

these bitches were starting fights with tuk-tuk drivers over 53 cents
while wearing yoga leggings that cost half a year’s salary
in the country they were “retreating” to.

let’s never stop and ask ourselves
why so many people live in poverty here
while we bounce around like it’s a fucking white girl spiritual awakening tour.
are we seriously this removed from reality?
apparently.
the yoga is clearly working for you.

it’s almost impressive
how out of touch you have to be
to feel spiritually superior
while actively being the problem.

and honestly?
i was the problem too.

yoga didn’t fail me.
white women did.
and i didn’t want to be one of them anymore.

i promise you this

i promise to be around.
not in the “let’s plan something eventually” kind of way.
i mean really be there.
be home.
be present.

if we have enough, i'll take on less work.
i won’t keep chasing “more” just to prove something.
if we’re okay, i’ll stop.
i’ll sit still.
i’ll know you.
you won’t grow up feeling like i was always just out of reach.

i won’t be too busy to be your mom in real time.

i promise your childhood will feel like something.
you’ll wake up to music on the weekends.
i’ll make chocolate chip pancakes.
not because it’s a holiday.
just because.

i’ll go shopping with you for no reason.
not to spend a ton of money—
just to walk around and tell you you’re beautiful.
because you are.
and because someone should say it while you’re still figuring it out for yourself.

i promise i’ll never compete with you.
i don’t need you to become anything for me.
you don’t owe me your success.
but when you outgrow me, outshine me, out-beautiful me—
i won’t be jealous.

i’ll be proud.
loudly.
i’ll take your picture and brag to strangers.
i’ll be the one clapping the loudest for you, always.

i promise to let you be human.
you get to make mistakes.
you get to mess up.
you get to figure things out and get things wrong.
i won’t talk down to you.
i won’t shame you.

i’ll help you clean it up and move forward.
that’s it.
that’s the job.

i promise you won’t come home to no one.
i know what that feels like—
coming home to a quiet, empty house.
to silence.
to feeling like no one’s waiting for you.

you’ll never come home wondering where i am.
i’ll be there.
even if i’m just in the kitchen doing dishes.
even if we’re not doing anything big.
you’ll know i’m there.

i promise to protect you.
i’ll never leave you with people i don’t trust.
if someone makes you uncomfortable, that’s enough.
you don’t need a reason.
you say no, and i’ll back you up.

i’ll never force you to hug or kiss anyone.
your body is yours.
always.

i promise to keep you safe in real ways.
i will never fucking hit you.
you won’t have to flinch at home.
you’ll feel calm.
grounded.
like someone’s always got you.

because i do.

i promise to tell you the truth about your dad.
that he was a hero.
that he gave up everything for what he believed in.
that he saw things no one should have to see—
and still tried to be kind.

that he was the most handsome man i’ve ever known.
that he gave you the face i love so much i could cry just looking at it.

that we loved each other—
even if it didn’t last.
that at one point, i saw forever in him.
and more than anything, we wanted you.
you weren’t an accident.
you were the plan.
we made our family on purpose.

i’ll tell you the stories.
i’ll show you the pictures.
you’ll never have to guess where you came from.

i promise to always want to hear about your day.
even when you’re older.
even when you’re busy.
even if it’s just “i’m tired.”

you can tell me the bad stuff.
i won’t get mad.
i won’t shame you.
i’ll help you.
that’s it.
that’s the whole thing.

i promise you’ll never see love used as a weapon.
you won’t grow up watching someone disrespect me while i pretend it’s normal.
you won’t learn to call cruelty “passion” or fear “loyalty.”

you’ll see love that’s safe.
love that’s calm.
love that holds without hurting.

i promise to never scare you.
i won’t scream at you.
i won’t throw things.
i won’t break your trust just because i’m upset.

you’ll never feel unsafe with me.

i promise i won’t leave you.
i won’t kick you out.
i won’t abandon you.
i won’t turn away.
my mom taught me that.

i’ll be here.
every day.
until i can’t be anymore.
and even then—
i’ll have left you enough love to carry you through.

you are it for me.
you are my wildest dream.
my best decision.
my whole heart.

and you’ll never have to wonder if you’re loved.
you’ll know.

in other universes

there’s a universe where i was never born.
and in that world, she was free.
she didn’t stay. she didn’t go back.
she didn’t get pregnant again.
she still had my brother—but they were safe.

maybe they lived somewhere quiet, close to the woods, not the city she’s always hated.
maybe she worked with her hands more, laughed more, stressed less.
maybe she was soft. and carefree.

or maybe—
she never met my father at that laundromat.
maybe their lives missed each other entirely.
and none of it ever happened.
and i never existed.
and still, she was okay.

in another universe, i was born—
but we got out when i was small.
and i grew up in a yard full of flowers.
with a mom who was present, not just physically, but there.
we had routines. we had snacks.
she smelled like safety and let herself rest.
she didn’t carry it all alone.

there’s a world where he and i got pregnant—
the first time, the second, the third, the fourth.
one of those months we thought maybe.
and it actually was.
successfully.
we had that baby.
and maybe it was hard, and maybe we weren’t ready—
but we stayed.
and we tried.
and that baby wasn’t a ghost i still can’t stop naming in my sleep.

there’s a world where you didn’t run.
where you stood beside me when it mattered.
where you didn’t disappear when i needed someone to witness what i was crawling through.
where you said i’ve got you—and meant it.

and somewhere, in some version of this life, i didn’t have to leave everything.
because i wasn’t alone.
because i had people who loved me.
a family that stayed close.
people who knew how to hold grief without being afraid of it.
people who said, we see you. you belong here.
and meant it.

but i don’t live in those universes.
i live in this one.
the one where i survived.
the one where i became a mother in the fire.
the one where i left. and lost. and stayed gone.

still—
sometimes, in the quiet, i think of them.
those other versions of me.
of her.
of all of us.

and i send them love.

because even if i’ll never live there,
i hope they do.

and i hope, in their world—
someone is waiting on the porch.
because i’m home.
and nothing hurts.

still didn’t drown with you

it’s true.
i never loved you — not like that.

not the way people mean it when they talk about falling in love.
to fall, for me, means something holy. something cellular.
like your presence quiets the world.
like being near you makes me more myself.
like i could feel peace just standing next to you.

that’s not what we had.

you were always hiding.
behind bravado. behind addiction. behind an idea of who you thought a man should be.
but the truth is — i would’ve loved you more for your honesty than your mask.

i would’ve loved you anyway.
even with the trauma.
even with the ptsd.
even with the wreckage you carried behind your eyes.

because if anyone knows what it’s like to crawl out of a burning room in your own mind — it’s me.

but you wouldn’t let me in.
you lied. and then did the things i already knew you were going to do.
and then you left.
quiet. quick. like a ghost.
poof.

but i don’t hate you.

maybe it’s because hate still requires something visceral. something alive.
and what i feel for you now is something else entirely.

i feel space.

and i’ll always hold that space for you.
not because you earned it.
but because you gave me the only thing that truly mattered —
our daughter.
this luminous little soul you left behind for me to raise on my own.

and i do.
gladly.
fiercely.
without resentment.

i forgive you.

i will never hate you.

but i know why you hated me.
you hated me because i survived something darker, and still didn’t become like you.
because i didn’t lie.
i didn’t steal.
i didn’t cheat.

maybe i was a bitch sometimes —
but only because no one was coming to save me.
and i refused to drown with you.

this doesn’t get forgiven

i’m writing this because silence has protected too many people for too long.
because love — real, fierce, devoted love — isn’t always enough to undo the damage.

there was a person i trusted more than anyone.
my person.
the one who shaped me.
the one who taught me how to survive.
and still, i’m left with this:

i do not forgive you.

i forgave being born into violence.
i forgave the choice to have me after a restraining order had already been filed.
i was born in 1989. the paperwork said 1988.
that should’ve been enough.

i forgave the choice to stay for a decade.
to stay while we were terrorized.
not because you didn’t know.
not because it was the 90s.
but because i convinced myself maybe you just didn’t know how to leave.

but the truth is —
the police came.
the police left.
everyone saw.
and no one helped.

and i forgave what came after.
the moving. the loss of the first place that ever felt safe.
the dog we gave away because there was nowhere else to go.
(or the one that got kicked to death)
the pull-out couch we shared at granny’s when i was a teenager, already insecure in every way.

the friends’ homes that became mine.
the blow-up mattresses.
the instability.
you tried. you loved me. and i forgave you anyway.

i forgave being poor.
i forgave you giving me what you could — even when it wasn’t enough.

i forgave the time i called after school — desperate — trapped in that house because the bus dropped me off like always.
i said he was going to kill me.
you said you couldn’t leave work.
you told me to call the police.

so i ended up on the roof of the garage — like usual — waiting for them to come.

i forgave the therapist who said we were lying.
i forgave the silence that followed.
i forgave the court that handed him custody — even though he didn’t want me.
even though he didn’t hide it.

i forgave being left with him.
over and over.
nowhere else to go.
i forgave the dismissal. the deflection. the way i learned to swallow everything just to survive another day.

even when i told you what i heard in that hotel room.
even when i said i couldn’t take anymore.
you couldn’t hear it.
you couldn’t admit that what i was saying was real.

even when you saw i wanted to die.
did you ever wonder why?

i forgave all of it.
i even forgave you when i told you my husband strangled me — and nothing changed.
because there are no emergencies when your life has always been a tragedy.

you didn’t help me leave until he put me in the emergency room.
only then.

but you didn’t bring me to safety.
you packed me up.
sent me across the country.
back to him.
back to my father.

the same man who terrorized us.
the same man you once needed protection from.
the same devastation and violence you never let us forget.

you knew if i stayed in colorado, i would die.
and still — you chose to send me back into the same fire you once escaped.
because your home was full.
because i found a man just like the one i was raised to love.
because that’s what love had always looked like.

i forgave the fear. the silence. the nights i tried to tell you things by saying them outright — and you looked away.
i forgave the dismissal. the avoidance.
the way i was always making things harder.

but i do not forgive what happened after she was born.
after i survived.
after i finally had something to protect beyond myself.

i don’t forgive you for leaving my baby in that house.
not when you knew.
not when everything was already broken and burning.

i don’t forgive you for not knowing where she was.
for letting him blame us — for suggesting we were the cause of your emergency.
your stress.

not to be a stressor anymore.
ever again.

i blame you for how easily you cast her aside.
for treating my child — your granddaughter — not like family, but like a burden.
for leaving her with a stranger.
(not that you knew. or cared.)

you knew what i was doing.
you knew i was running.
you knew i was escaping in silence, in the dark.

and you made me go back.

you made me return to hell and pull her out myself.
you watched me claw us back to safety — again — and acted like i was dramatic for telling you what i saw.

no.
i will never forgive that.

it will never be the same.
and i will never be the kind of mother you were.

that much, i promise.

the ashtanga cult

when i first went to mysore, i wasn’t chasing some big spiritual awakening—
i just wanted to see where this practice came from.

i’d been doing ashtanga for a while.
i kept hearing people talk about mysore like it was the holy land.
everyone made it sound like this magical place that would change everything.

so i figured... why not.
let’s see what the hype is about.

but within days of arriving, i remember thinking vividly:
these people are fucking crazy.

it wasn’t the asanas—those made sense.
strong. methodical. rhythmic.

it was everything around them—
the altars to pattabhi jois,
the hush around questioning authority,
the way people’s eyes darted around if you asked uncomfortable questions.
the yoga police—self-appointed guardians of "purity"—side-eyeing you if they caught a hint you drank alcohol or, god forbid, ate meat.
the weird ass conversations about "guruji," delivered with the kind of solemn reverence usually reserved for saints.

it hit me fast and hard that even though saraswathi was his daughter—and a truly remarkable teacher—
her son took the throne.

i saw how small her shala was compared to the anointed one’s.
it already made no fucking sense to me.
so i went back.
over and over.

maybe i’d missed something?
maybe they weren’t really this far gone?

i’d traveled halfway around the world to practice yoga.
but what i found felt a lot more like a well-dressed cult.

rigid rules.
idol worship.
a kind of quiet obedience that made my skin crawl.

sharath jois sat at the center of it all—
benefiting immensely, both financially and culturally, from the system as it stood.

and when the me too movement finally cracked the surface?
his response landed like a soft deflection.
more about his struggle than the people who had come forward.

and people praised it.
clapped.
sighed with relief.

because if they didn’t—
they’d have to face the truth.

that their practice, their teacher, their whole carefully curated identity
might be built on top of something cracked.
something dark.
something deeply fucked up.

it wasn’t just spiritual bypassing.
it was collective delusion.
the kind that protects power, punishes dissent, and wraps itself in incense and sanskrit to keep from being questioned.

i stood in the middle of it thinking:
how the fuck is this still happening?

mysore was powerful, yes.
but not because of the bullshit hierarchy or the inherited thrones.

it was powerful because it showed me—up close—
how quickly devotion turns into denial.
how easy it is to call something sacred
just because everyone else does.

snaps fingers
wake up