sometimes, it’s better to be called “wicked” than to be called a “fool”.
because when you are a girl, they hand you a script at birth; lined with soft-spoken roles and tidy silences, a performance of patience stitched in obedience.
they teach you that goodness is endurance, that to be loved is to endure quietly, to smile through betrayal, to carry wrongs like heirlooms passed down from woman to woman.
and so you fold yourself into corners, soften your voice, let the world take what it wants, your time, your trust, your tenderness.
they cross your boundaries with muddy feet, carve carelessness into your heart, then praise you for being a “good girl” when you bleed without protest.
but when the day comes — and it always does — when you finally choose yourself, when your voice no longer trembles, when your silence grows teeth, something shifts.
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they no longer call you kind; they call you cruel.
they no longer see you as gentle; they call you difficult, bitter, too much.
they no longer call you good; they call you wicked.
not because you’ve lost your grace, but because you’ve learned to guard it.
not because you’ve hardened, but because you’ve stopped letting them bruise you and call it love.
and somehow, in their eyes, the girl who refuses to be a “fool” must be wicked.
but if wicked means drawing a line, reclaiming your name, standing whole and unshaken, then let them call you wicked.
because there is a quiet power in being misunderstood by those who only ever valued your silence.
