Sometimes I tell stories that get reactions I don’t expect—stories of old pain, the kind I’ve carried for years. But now, I can look back on those moments and see how they shaped me, made me stronger. This poem was born from one of those times—watching someone respond in a way I didn’t see coming.

Don’t Cry for Me

Don’t cry for me. These stories

I tell are not steeped in sorrow,

though they carry the scent

of old smoke and winter rain.

They are the bark of trees

split by lightning and still standing,

the faint trace of a scar

beneath the sleeve of a collared shirt.

Yes, there were hard years—

rooms where silence curled up

in corners like a dog no one fed,

nights I fled to the hills

without hope and peace.

But I don’t speak them

to make you ache.

I speak of them because I lived.

Because I came through.

Like a thistle in the fence row

pushing up purple

through gravel and shit,

I bloomed anyway.

So let me tell it plain—

about the father who lost everything,

including respect and care,

about the mother,

who could make a feast

from a cupboard of almost nothing.

Each story, a lamp lit
on a porch that faced the dark,
not to keep us out,
but to remind us—we are here.
We made it.

So don’t cry.

Not for me.

Just listen.

And know

what we are made of.