An inner voice reclaimed.
“We don’t always rebel with rage.
Sometimes we rebel by remembering who we are.”
This piece is a fragment of that remembering — not loud, not long, but true.
A postscript of power. A refusal to disappear.
I was taught to be kind
before I was taught to be whole.
I was taught to obey
before I was taught to trust myself.
And somewhere along the way,
I forgot that I was allowed
to want,
to rage,
to say this doesn’t work for me.
The rules I was given were not made for me.
Rules like:
Be nice, even when you’re breaking inside.
Don’t upset them — your truth can wait.
Shrink to fit their comfort zone.
“I simply stopped dancing to other people’s tune”
These weren’t rules.
They were silencers.
And I wore them like gospel.
Until I didn’t.
Rebellion, for me, looked like this:
Laughing loudly again
Saying I don’t agree
Leaving the room when it hurt
Naming the things no one else would
Not because I wanted to start a war —
but because I stopped wanting to disappear.
They called me difficult.
They called me too emotional.
They called me selfish.
But they never called me free.
So I named myself.
Rebel.
Not because I break everything —
but because I break the things that break me.
A Note for the Ones Who Were Told to Be Quiet
This is not about destruction.
It’s about becoming whole where you were once made small.
We don’t owe obedience to the rules that taught us to betray ourselves.
We owe ourselves the courage to rewrite what wholeness looks like — in our own voice.
Reflection Prompt:
- What rule have you outgrown?
- What label no longer fits the truth of who you are?
Recent Echoes from This Arc
The Thread So Far…
Begin at the beginning — or enter wherever the ache or breath draws you:
In Tenderness,
A. J. Ashé | Being Human
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