Tag: reality check

Do you ever think of me when the world goes quiet, when the only voice left is the one inside your head?

Do I slip into your thoughts as you sink into the comfort of your sheets, or is the weight of your own lies heavier than any pillow you rest upon?

You built a bed not from love, not from truth, but from deceptions stitched together with dishonesty. And yet, I wonder if my ghost still lingers there, haunting the corners of your mind, whispering in the silence you cannot escape.

Because no matter how soft the mattress, no matter how carefully you arrange your covers, a bed of lies can never offer rest. It can cradle your body, but it will never soothe your soul.

So tell me, when the night is longest and your eyes refuse to close, do you ever think of me?

We live in an era where the roles are blurred, but not because women demanded it, because men abandoned theirs. Women are forced to become the man, not out of choice, but out of survival. While men are busy acting like princesses, sassy, fragile, and allergic to accountability, women are building empires, paying bills, and creating peace all on their own.

The modern man has traded discipline for excuses, accountability for ego, and emotional intelligence for tantrums. They no longer know how to protect nor provide, yet still crown themselves as “the prize.” But here is the truth, the moment you expect a man to act like a man, he shrinks, claims you are attacking him, and retreats into pettiness.

The irony?

They want the respect of a king while behaving like spoiled heirs who never earned the throne.

And women?

We are not chasing. If a woman is already used to providing for herself, creating her own joy, and standing firm in her own worth, what exactly is she supposed to gain from a man who brings nothing but expectations? A man who wants to sit at the head of the table but does not even know what it takes to build one?. No thank you. She would rather stay single than waste her time raising a boy who refuses to grow.

This is not an attack, it is merely a cleanly polished mirror. Masculinity has been watered down, and the world is watching women carry both crowns and burdens. Until men reclaim their backbone, their discipline, and their purpose, women will keep doing it all, and doing it better.

Period.

So to all the self-proclaimed princes in women’s clothing of responsibility, either step up, grow up, and act like men, or stay out of the way.

Queens do not kneel for princesses.

There is a quiet kind of strength that people do not expect, the kind that comes when you stop explaining yourself, when you quit defending every move, every word, every intention. For so long, we are conditioned to believe that proving our innocence, clarifying our side, and overexplaining is the way to protect our dignity. But in reality, it is the very thing that gives others control over us.

The moment you stop reacting, something fascinating happens, the grip they thought they had on you slips away. Your silence becomes unsettling. Your lack of explanation robs them of the satisfaction they crave. Suddenly, the person who once thrived on your reactions stands powerless, grasping at straws, trying to pull you back into the exhausting cycle you just broke free from.

It is almost immediate, the shift. Where once they dictated the rhythm of your emotions, you now stand unmoved, unbothered, untouched. And in that stillness, there is undeniable power. Power that says. I owe no one my peace. I owe no one my explanations. My truth stands on its own, whether I voice it or not.

There is nothing louder than the silence of someone who has chosen not to engage. Because silence is not weakness, it is the strongest statement you can ever make.

The day you stop explaining is the day they stop controlling.

Life has not been the fairytale many people dream of, nor has it been the easy road that so many take for granted. From the age of sixteen, when I first tasted the sharp edge of mental collapse, my reality has been one of survival, not luxury. My first nervous breakdown left me suicidal and I have been with that mindset since. Hospitalised, and labelled as “attention-seeking” by those who should have held me the closest. They laughed, they mocked, they tormented and tortured, but they never understood that behind my silence was a storm they could never weather.

At eleven, I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome. My body changed, my weight became a public joke, and my pain became invisible because society only saw the surface. Later came the blow of cervical cancer. I cut my hair short, not as a fashion statement, but as a way of bracing myself for what I knew lay ahead. I rejected treatment because chemotherapy broke more than my body, it broke my spirit. I endured pain quietly, spoke only to my father, and carried the burden of knowing that he too was in pain for me and he died a little inside everyday knowing that he could not save me.

The years rolled on, but not kindly. Eleven miscarriages in six years of marriage, endless insults, abuse, and a body that betrayed me more with every season. Yet through it all, I endured. I survived.

A year ago, I was informed of cancerous cysts in my womb and that I need an emergency complete abdominal hysterectomy, blocked arteries, and the looming shadow of heart surgery. I chose not to give in, not because I had no fear, but because I was tired of being reduced to a patient, tired of swallowing pills that stole my body and fed the cruelty of others. Eating meant weight gain, and weight gain meant judgement, a woman’s worth measured by numbers on a scale, while her silent battles went unseen.

Then came myeloma in my spine. The pain paralyses me some days. I cannot move, I cannot breathe through the waves that grip my bones. But I decided then, no more pills, no more chains. I will live as I am, with pain shots if I must, but with a smile no matter how much it hurts.

I show up.

I smile.

Not because my life is easy, but because I refuse pity or unnecessary sympathy.

I have learned to stand without a safety net, no inheritance, no parents to lean on, no shortcuts. Just my own hard work, my own halal means of survival, even when I am crumbling inside. Since my mother’s passing and that one horrid experience, I have arranged my own burial and last rites, because I know death is never far. Yet this is not a surrender, it is my way of preparing with dignity, of taking control in a life that so often spiralled beyond my control, of not being a burden to people who love self praise and thrive on public recognition.

So yes, I may not know how long I have left. I may walk slowly, and some days I do not walk at all. My body may betray me, but my spirit will not. I choose to face the world with a smile because life, no matter how heavy, has not broken me and I will be damned if I allow it to.

And maybe that is the real lesson, life will not always be as I wish it to be. But even in the storm, even in the fire, even in the pain, I still rise, still show up, and still smile.

So the next time you laugh at my weight, my scars, or my silence or a fabrication you heard about me, remember, you are mocking the battle that is keeping me alive.

For every lie and insult that was thrown at me , was aimed at someone that was already fighting for her life.

While you laughed at my pain, I was busy carrying the kind of battles that would have buried you, then to I smiled so the world would not see me bleed, you chose to wound me deeper, but your cruelty broke nothing in me, because I was already breaking just to stay alive.