A Devotion for the Ones Who Came Before Me

I carry their names in my blood

names whispered into earth, into birth, into memory.

Laborers. Builders. Survivors.

Hands that blistered. Backs that bent.

Spirits that held more than they could speak.

And sometimes, I feel the guilt of not living as they did.

I do not rise before dawn to break soil.

I do not come home with cracked hands and sore limbs.

I do not grind my soul down to survive the day.

And still…

I feel them.

In my bones.

In my breath.

In the hush between thoughts.

They do not ask me to suffer.

They do not ask me to mirror their pain.

They ask me to remember them —

not by imitation,

but by evolution.

I am not here to repeat them.

I am here to redeem them —

to carry their spirit into a new form of life.

One rooted not only in survival,

but in healing.

In beauty.

In love.

Yes, the world has changed.

And in that change,

my very softness is a revolution.

My rest is resistance.

My voice is remembrance.

My peace is a prayer they never had time to utter.

To those who labored before me

I honor you.

I carry you.

I become you,

differently.