I was born into survival,
the kind that teaches little girls
how to carry worlds before they can carry themselves.
I became a mother before I became whole,
a healer before I was healed,
a safe place for everyone else
while secretly searching for one of my own.
I learned how to give.
Give my time.
Give my body.
Give my grace.
Give my forgiveness.
And somehow still apologize
when there was nothing left to give.
I sat in classrooms with tired eyes,
memorizing diseases while fighting my own wounds.
Studying kidneys, hearts, and lungs,
while my own heart struggled to stay alive.
People saw the scrubs.
They didn’t see the woman
working all night,
raising children all day,
then sitting in parking lots
trying not to cry before exams.
They saw strength.
They didn’t see survival.
I have loved men who only visited my life
when it was convenient.
Men who called me home
but never gave me an address.
Men who loved my loyalty,
my softness,
my understanding
but never enough to choose me publicly.
So I stood in doorways
that were never fully opened,
waiting for people
who kept one foot outside.
And God…
How many times have I said I was done?
Done with the heartbreak.
Done with the confusion.
Done with the cycle.
Only to find myself standing
at the same intersection,
calling it a different street.
Because sometimes sin isn’t just what you do.
Sometimes it’s what you return to.
The thing that keeps breaking you
while convincing you it loves you.
The wound that introduces itself as healing.
The cage that feels like home.
I buried babies I never got to hold.
Buried versions of myself too.
The woman who believed love would be enough.
The woman who thought sacrifice guaranteed loyalty.
The woman who kept setting herself on fire
to prove she was warm.
Each funeral left another scar.
Each scar taught another lesson.
Yet somehow, I still found myself
reaching for things God was asking me to release.
Trapped.
Not by chains.
But by patterns.
By hope.
By memories.
By the belief that if I loved harder,
stayed longer,
hurt quieter,
something would finally change.
But maybe redemption isn’t found
in another chance.
Maybe redemption is found
the moment a woman looks at the ruins
of everything she survived
and decides,
“I will not live here anymore.”
Maybe freedom begins
when the nurse stops bleeding for her patients.
When the mother remembers she is someone’s child too.
When the lover stops auditioning
for a role she already deserved.
When the woman in the mirror
finally chooses herself.
I am not trapped because I have sinned.
I am trapped because I forgot who I was.
And every battle,
every heartbreak,
every lonely night,
has been God standing outside the prison
whispering
“Ashley the door was never locked”
The chains were fear.
The bars were doubt.
The prison was familiar pain.
And the key…
The key was always in my hands.
Ashley Monae 