They thought they buried her
beneath silence,
beneath shame,
beneath the twisted shadows
of what was never her fault.

A girl, broken open
before she knew what “no” could mean.
Her innocence wasn’t lost
it was stolen, stripped
by hands that never knew the weight of consequence.

But still,
she breathed.
Each day she woke
with trembling limbs and fractured dreams,
but she woke.

The world told her to forget,
to stay quiet,
to smile and move on
as if her body weren’t a battlefield
and her memory a crime scene.

But she remembered.
Not because she wanted to,
but because her bones held stories
no one else dared to carry.

She walked through hell barefoot,
every step blistered by betrayal,
every tear a sacred rebellion
against the ones who silenced her.

But healing,
it doesn’t come all at once.
It comes in fragments
A breath that doesn’t shake.
A night without screaming.
A mirror she can finally face.

She stitched herself
from shards and silence,
gathered every broken piece
and dared to say,
“This is still me.
And I am still here.”

Not whole
but holy.
Not healed
but healing.
And that is enough.

Because she is not just what happened to her.
She is who she became in spite of it.

She is
survival.
She is
resilience.
She is
the quiet roar of a woman
who will never again
be unmade.

– Christy Farris

Author’s Note: “She Who Rose From Ruin” is a poetic resurrection the reclamation of a voice once buried under silence and shame. In this piece, I confront the violence of stolen innocence and the long shadow trauma casts across a life. Yet, the poem is not merely an excavation of suffering; it is a declaration of survival.

Through stark, compassionate imagery (“her body a battlefield,” “her bones held stories no one else dared to carry”), the poem honors the truth of what is endured in childhood and what echoes into adulthood. But even more powerful is the steady insistence that survival is not defined by perfection. Healing is shown as something sacred, uneven, and deeply human (“not whole but holy… not healed but healing”).

What rises from the poem is not pity but reverence. The speaker becomes a symbol of every woman whose pain was dismissed, whose truth was disbelieved, whose strength was forged in the quiet hours no one ever saw. This poem stands as both testimony and triumph: a reminder that even in the aftermath of profound harm, identity can be reclaimed, voice can be restored, and the self can rise not untouched, but unbroken.

It is the quiet roar of a woman who refuses to be unmade.

Note: This piece was originally published by QuietMuse77 in 2025.