Crow and Flame

After the assault, somewhere along the way, I developed a quiet narrative inside my mind.

No one said it out loud to me.

No one handed it to me like a rule book.

But it grew there anyway.

Like a whisper that slowly became a belief.

If I was nice enough.

Kind enough.

If I dressed well. Modestly.

If I was respectful.

If I didn’t speak too loudly.

If I didn’t draw attention to myself.

If I said the right things.

If I did the right things.

Then no one would hurt me.

Then I wouldn’t be punished.

Somehow, without even realizing it, I took all of the responsibility.

All of the pain.

All of the shame.

All of the weight.

I carried it like it belonged to me.

Instead of recognizing what had been done to me, I began trying to redesign myself so that nothing like it could ever happen again.

I tried to become a version of a woman who could not be harmed.

So I started editing myself.

I softened my opinions.

Lowered my voice.

Adjusted my clothes.

Measured my laughter.

Watched my tone.

Apologized for things that were not mine to apologize for.

I studied my own behavior like it was a formula.

Like if I just solved it correctly, the world would finally leave me alone.

I thought if I could just become perfect enough, the pain would stop finding me.

Without realizing it, I built a box.

And then I tried very hard to live inside it.

A small, quiet, well-behaved box.

A box where I was agreeable.

A box where I was easy to love.

A box where I did not take up too much space.

A box where I did not make anyone uncomfortable.

A box where nothing bad could happen again.

At least that’s what I told myself.

But boxes built from fear are not protection.

They are cages.

And the strange thing about trauma is that it doesn’t just live in your memories.

It lives in your body.

Your nervous system learns the story long before your mind understands it.

My nervous system became a constant guard dog.

Always scanning.

Always listening.

Always calculating.

Who is in the room?

Is it safe to speak?

Am I being too much?

Did I say something wrong?

Did I upset someone?

Am I about to be punished again?

My body stayed ready for danger even when there wasn’t any.

My shoulders stayed tight.

My chest stayed braced.

My breath stayed shallow.

My nervous system had learned that safety could disappear in an instant, so it worked overtime trying to prevent that moment from ever happening again.

And the way it tried to protect me was simple:

Be smaller.

Be quieter.

Be better.

Be perfect.

Because maybe, just maybe, if I followed every invisible rule, no one would hurt me again.

But the truth is harder than that.

No amount of kindness could have prevented what happened.

No amount of modesty.

No amount of politeness.

No amount of doing everything right.

Because harm does not happen when someone is too loud.

Or too passionate.

Or too trusting.

Harm happens because someone chose to harm.

That realization took years to begin settling into my bones.

Years of unlearning the lie that my safety depended on how well I performed goodness.

Years of noticing how often I still shrink.

How often I apologize for existing.

How often I hold back parts of myself because somewhere deep in my nervous system there is still a frightened version of me whispering:

Don’t be too much. Too much is dangerous.

But here is what I’m learning now.

The box never made me safer.

It just made me smaller.

And smaller is not the same thing as safe.

For a long time I thought healing meant becoming calmer, quieter, more contained.

But healing is actually something else entirely.

Healing is letting the nervous system slowly learn that the world is not always the place where the worst thing will happen again.

Healing is teaching the body that it no longer has to live like a smoke alarm that never stops ringing.

Healing is realizing that I was never meant to live folded up.

Because somewhere inside me has always been the crow.

The crow is watchful.

Wise.

Observant.

She remembers.

She sees the patterns in the sky and the truth in the shadows.

The crow knows how to survive.

But inside me there is also the flame.

The part that burns bright.

The part that feels deeply.

Speaks boldly.

Creates art and words and color and life.

For a long time I thought the flame was the problem.

Too bright.

Too intense.

Too noticeable.

So I tried to smother it.

I tried to turn the fire into a candle that barely flickered.

Something small enough that no one would ever feel threatened by its light.

But flames are not meant to apologize for burning.

And crows are not meant to live inside boxes.

The crow in me remembers what happened.

But the flame in me refuses to disappear because of it.

These days I am slowly learning to let them exist together.

The crow watches.

The flame burns.

The crow protects.

The flame creates.

One keeps me aware.

The other keeps me alive.

And somewhere between the two, I am learning how to step outside of the box I built from fear.

Some days it is messy.

Some days my nervous system still panics when nothing is wrong.

Some days the old voice still whispers that I am too much.

Too loud.

Too emotional.

Too passionate.

Too intense.

But I’m starting to understand something that trauma tried very hard to make me forget.

I was never too much.

I was just never meant to be contained.

And the more I let myself exist as both crow and flame—

watchful and wild, cautious and bright—

the more I realize that healing is not about becoming smaller.

It is about remembering how to take up space again.

Even if my voice shakes.

Even if my light feels blinding to some people.

Even if the fire in me makes others uncomfortable.

Because I am no longer building cages out of fear.

I am learning how to live in the open sky again.