Exclusion

I arrived in the arms of the Kingdom like a curious bride—wide-eyed, heart trembling with wonder, dressed in hope I had stitched myself. 

I had heard tales, so many tales. That she was graceful, that she was fair, that she opened doors for those who knocked with sincerity. 

And I did knock. 

Not with fists, but with prayers. With certificates folded like offerings. With teeth clenched in readiness. With love. 

But the Kingdom looked past me. 

She smiled as I entered—softly, formally. Her courtesies were rehearsed, but her eyes didn’t hold me. She never truly invited me in. 

She watched me eat in silence. Watched me try to sleep through sirens and suspicion. Watched me walk through her streets like a stranger who had overstayed. 

She let me feel the chill of belonging that never warmed. 

In boardrooms and backrooms, her whispers turned to cuts. 

Polite refusals. Shifting eyes. Criteria that weeded us out. 

Co-workers who smiled through gritted teeth, as if my presence disturbed a pattern they didn’t want to name. 

And always, the ever-present question floating between syllables: 

“Why are you here?” 

Sometimes they asked it with their mouths. 

Other times, with their silence. 

I began to shrink in the shadows she cast. 

Not all at once—but slowly. 

One missed opportunity. 

One sideways glance. 

One “misunderstanding” that left me feeling both angry and afraid. 

And fear— 

Fear became an ingredient in my day. 

Fear of the slur yelled in passing. 

Fear of the laugh that follows. 

Fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time wearing the wrong skin. 

Fear that I’d forget how it felt to feel safe. 

The Kingdom pressed her fingers to my mouth and called it peace. 

She wanted me quiet, grateful, assimilated. 

She wanted me small, not different. 

She wanted the version of me she could tolerate, not the one I carried from home. 

And home—God, how I longed for it. 

Its familiar heat. 

Its noise that didn’t sting. 

The way I could breathe without apology. 

Even the ache of it felt more honest than this polished rejection. 

I stopped sleeping the way I used to. 

My dreams scattered, always restless. 

Food lost its taste, and I swallowed more shame than sustenance. 

My mind—once a garden—grew weeds of doubt I couldn’t pull out alone. 

I asked why more times than I can count. 

But I’ve stopped looking to the Kingdom for answers. 

She had her chance to love me. 

Now I wake up with a different fire. 

I will take what I came for. 

Not out of gratitude, but with grit. 

I will gather every skill, every lesson, every piece of power she tried to keep from me. 

And when she needs me, when she’s gasping for the same hands she refused to lift—I will be gone. 

I will never settle. 

Because settling is surrender. 

Because being quiet would mean she wins. 

Because I was not made to bend into spaces that weren’t built for me. 

She may have rejected me, 

But I refuse to reject myself. 

From a heart carved from tears and pain.