The Aphrodite Collective

There’s a girl I used to know.

Or maybe I still do.

Maybe she’s someone’s sister.

Someone’s secret.

Someone’s scapegoat.

She wasn’t born with armor.

She built it.

Out of promises that shattered.

Out of “I love you”s that sounded like exit wounds.

Out of all the nights she cried herself clean.

They said she was crazy.

They said she was too much.

They said she deserved it.

But when you survive that many betrayals, you start to see clearly:

It’s not her that’s broken.

It’s the pedestal they built to keep her small.

She loved them anyway.

The wrong ones. The beautiful liars. The ones who made her question everything—including herself.

“They tell me not to falter, to tell them who I am.

But I’m not fucking sure, I know I love shitty men.

They normally contribute to the state that I’m in.

This place that I’m in. This fucking state that I’m in.”

—J.M.

Maybe she said that.

Maybe she screamed it in a bathroom stall with her eyeliner running down like war paint.

Maybe it was a whisper in a dream. Or a truth too sharp to speak aloud.

But she didn’t break.

She bent. She screamed. She left.

And that is a kind of power no one talks about.

She didn’t need revenge.

She needed peace.

Now, when she looks in the mirror, she doesn’t see a victim.

She sees a survivor with glitter on her collarbone and steel in her smile.

So if you meet her—

Or someone like her—

Know this:

She remembers everything.

She forgives nothing.

And she doesn’t burn anymore.

She smolders.