I WRITE WHERE I AM QUIET

I am shy by nature,
introverted,
the kind of child who learned early
that watching was safer than speaking.
Silence became a second skin
I wore without question.

I was born in 1985, 
Blackfoot at my core,
though no taught  me how to
name it then.
By the age of seven,
I was taken,
not because I wasn't loved,
but because love alone
was never enough to protect us.

My biological father was 
a name that lived in absence.
My biological mother was 
a woman judged for her struggles
but never fully seen.
They said "alcoholic"
and closed the book on her life.

In the foster home,
I became small and responsible 
at once.
Still a child,
yet helping care for other foster kids,
tying shoes, warming bottles,
learning tenderness 
long before I recieved it.

We were raised Catholic,
prayers memorized before bed,
confession kneeling heavy on my knees.
I learned about forgiveness
before anyone taught me
how to be safe.

The man who was supposed to 
protect us
crossed lines with words and hands
that should never have reached me.
I didn't have the language for it then,
only a feeling
that something was terribly wrong.

I told my foster mother,
She told him to stop.
He didn't listen.

So I learned another lesson:
that speaking up
doesn't always bring rescue,
and thatsome truths fall
into rooms that echo empty.

Years passed like that,
me growing inward,
guarded, careful,
carrying what no child 
should carry
alone.

Then May 2011 came,
My foster mom died,
and though she hadn't saved me,
she was still a constant,
and when she was gone,
my world shattered.

The house felt hollow,
and so did I.
I was alone in a new way,
grieving a complicated love
with no one to hold me through it.

Later came another loss,
October 2012,
the day I learned
My biological mother, 
had passed away.
No chance for answers.
No chance to ask
why she couldn't come back for me.

I mourned twice,
once as a child waiting by the door,
and once as an adult
learning some doors
never open again.

Still I am here.
Quiet, yes
but strong in ways no one saw.
I survived systems that failed me,
silences that harmed me,
and grief that tried to
hollow me out.

I am my mother's daughter.
I carry my father's name in my blood.
I am Blackfoot, even if the road back
was long and lonely.

I was hurt,
but I was not destroyed.
I was alone,
but I did not disappear.

This is not just a story 
of loss.
It is the story of a girl
who endured,
and a woman
who stills stands.