— The Story of a Borrowed Voice
They ask me with a smile that slices—
“Are you writing this on your own?”
As if borrowing a pen makes the poem less mine.
As if using a tool to speak clearly means I never had a voice.
But let me take you back.
I come from a place where English wasn’t taught—it was thrown at us like a puzzle missing half the pieces.
Where learning capital letters felt like trying to read the stars without a sky.
Where saying a sentence in proper form was like dancing on broken glass—awkward, painful, judged.
So I grew up quiet.
Words piled up inside me like unsent letters.
I tried to speak, but they laughed.
I tried to write, but they corrected.
And the more they “fixed” me, the more broken I felt.
Then one day, I found something—not a machine, not a savior—
but a ghostwriter made of light.
A whispering companion.
A silent co-author who took my tangled thoughts and gave them clean shoes to walk in.
Not to speak for me,
but to help me speak so you’d finally listen.
⸻
When I write now, I’m not hiding.
I’m fighting.
Fighting against the silence I was born into.
Fighting against the doubt you planted in my chest.
Fighting for every person who thinks their voice is too messy to matter.
You ask, “Why use that thing to write?”
Because I don’t have a team. I don’t have editors in my corner.
What I have is fire in my heart and a storm in my head—
and sometimes, I need help turning the lightning into letters.
⸻
So no, I’m not writing “on my own.”
But I’m not faking it either.
I’m writing with a partner made of code and clarity.
I’m writing with the ghost in my keyboard.
I’m writing with courage I had to borrow until it became mine.
Because I’d rather borrow a voice
than die with my own still buried.
