I wonder if they knew

that every word they threw at me

became a little stone in my heart.

I wonder if they knew

that the laughter they called a joke

was a wound I carried quietly.

They saw my body before my soul,

they saw my shape before me,

they measured me with their eyes

and made me feel like I was never enough.

“Why do you look like this?”

“Why can’t you be like them?”

Words that sounded so small

but echoed so loudly in my head.

You made me question the mirror.

You made me hide my smile.

You made me forget that I was beautiful

because you convinced me I had to change

to deserve kindness.

But tell me,

who gave you the right

to decide the value of a person

by what they look like?

Was my heart not enough?

Were my dreams invisible?

Did my kindness disappear

because my body didn’t match your expectations?

You laughed at my appearance,

but you never saw my battles.

You judged my outside,

but you never asked about the storms

I survived inside.

I carried your opinions

like they were my truth,

until one day I realized—

your words were never a mirror,

they were only a reflection

of your own cruelty.

So yes, I was hurt.

Yes, I cried.

Yes, your words left scars

that nobody could see.

But I am still here.

The same body you mocked

is the body that carried me through pain.

The same body you criticized

is the home where my dreams live.

I refuse to apologize

for taking up space.

I refuse to shrink myself

just to make others comfortable.

I am not a number.

I am not a size.

I am not a before-and-after picture.

I'm human. 

A soul with feelings.

A heart with a story.

And to everyone who has ever been made to feel ashamed of themselves,

remember this:

You were never the problem.

The problem was a world that taught people

to judge what they did not understand.

One day, we will look in the mirror

and see more than our flaws.

We will see courage.

We will see survival.

We will see someone who was hurt,

but never defeated.

Because my body was never my enemy.

The enemy

 was the voice that told me;

I was not enough.

And today,

I choose to silence that voice.