Confidence

I no longer mistake collapse for calling,
nor absence for loss.
The tremors that once splintered me
now pass clean through –
like wind through a net
woven from ten thousand hours of return.

They call it confidence.
I call it reclamation –
the slow extraction of myself
from all the places I was taught to vanish.
I didn’t inherit this steadiness;
I quarried it
from the ruins of every no
that tried to make a godless thing of me.

Strength is not something I perform,
it’s something I remember.
Something my bones whisper
on days the world forgets me.
It lives in the moments I chose truth
over belonging,
integrity over applause.

Do not test the stillness I stand in –
it is not quiet for your comfort.
It is the hush of a field
that survived the fire
and learned to grow flame-coloured trees.
It is the soft armour of authenticity;
light as breath,
but forged in the molten decision
to never lie to myself again.

No echo of envy, no blade of doubt
has edge enough now.
I’ve turned the knives inward,
sharpened them into mirrors,
learned to hold my gaze
without apology.
I’ve met the original version of me –
before the edits,
before the softening for comfort’s sake.

My confidence is not loud,
but it is permanent.
It does not beg to be seen;
but when it is,
it does not flinch.

I am not held up by approval,
nor shaken by its retreat.
I have rooted into a knowing
older than need,
a knowing that cannot be dressed up
or undone.

This is my power:
unrented,
unrehearsed,
undeniably mine.
And nothing borrowed
can be taken from me again.