They say every queen has her story, of gentleness and demure…
Let me ruin that expectation right here — this isn’t that story.
This isn’t the soft-focus, candle-lit journey of growth and grace and all the neat little lessons you think people gather by the end of a war. There’s no ribbon here, no bow neatly tying my chaos into something respectable. Respectable was never the goal.
This is not a book of wisdom.
This is not a story of peace earned and humility learned.
This is not a farewell letter from a warrior hanging up their blade.
I’m not done.
Not tired enough.
Not healed enough.
Not quiet enough.
If anything — I have sharpened.
This book is not a memoir in the way memoirs are supposed to be. It’s fragments. Scars. Spite. Ghost laughter. Every poem is an aftertaste. Every line is a splinter left intentionally unpulled.
Because here’s what nobody tells you:
Surviving doesn’t always leave you gentle.
Winning doesn’t always leave you soft.
Sometimes, you stay sharp because the world taught you edge faster than it taught you love.
And so, these words — raw, angry, unpolished — became my crown.
Not a delicate golden weight balanced on my head.
No. Something thornier. Meaner. More honest.
You’ll see no chronology here. No gentle arc of transformation. You’ll get verses written in battle haze. Lines scribbled between breakdowns. Entire poems forged from petty vengeance, sheer boredom, or a refusal to shut up just because someone else wanted me smaller.
This isn’t a book of lessons.
It’s a book of living.
And I’ll be damned if anyone calls that lesser.
