6 Comments
User's avatar
Rosa Lía Gilbert's avatar

Wow, Whitney. Always amazed. Congrats!

Expand full comment
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro's avatar

I am amazed by this poem that speaks across the ages.

Expand full comment
Amie Whittemore's avatar

YAY Whitney! I love this poem!

Expand full comment
Adrião Pereira da Cunha's avatar

This poem feels like a woman finally speaking in her own skin, without permission or apology.

It shows how sainthood is often built on the backs of girls whose pain was never considered sacred.

Her voice carries the ache of being praised and shamed by the same world that used her.

She refuses the soft-focus nostalgia that pretends her youth was gentle when it was anything but.

The “daughter’s cross” becomes the weight of a life spent enduring what others called holy.

She names the cruelty of a culture that blesses women only after it has broken them.

Every divine whisper becomes a trap, turning devotion into a wound she must carry alone.

The poem mourns how women are forced into impossible choices be a vessel or be erased.

Yet her final confession is startlingly human: a longing that has nothing to do with purity or sin.

It is the truth of a woman who wanted to be seen, touched by something real, beyond the roles carved for her.

Expand full comment
Whitney Rio-Ross's avatar

Thank you so much for this beautiful reading. I feel very seen!

Expand full comment
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro's avatar

This reply is nearly as gorgeous as the poem!

Expand full comment