Counterspell

They come with crooked mirrors,
teaching your pain to point inward,
whispering that the wound is yours to keep,
that harm is the only language left.

They press your name into blame,
stack your past like a verdict,
and call it truth—
as if you weren’t already carrying enough.

But listen—
there is a quieter force in you
that does not bruise or beg.
It steadies. It waits.

It says: I will not become their echo.
I will not let their poison sign my skin.
I am not proof of their power.

Resistance is not loud.
Sometimes it is a breath that refuses to shatter.
Sometimes it is staying.
Sometimes it is choosing tomorrow
without having to explain why.

Let them exhaust themselves
trying to turn you against you.
You are learning the older magic—
how to stand, how to endure,
how to keep your hands open
even when they want them closed.

And every moment you choose not to harm,
you are breaking a spell
they never had the right to cast.

---