They wanted me to be clean.
To be safe.
To be digestible.
But I was never going to be that.
I’ve walked through too many fires to come out polished.
I’ve made mistakes.
I’ve hurt people.
I’ve lived in a body shaped by trauma and responded with all the chaos it taught me.
I never said I was a saint.
What I said—what I still say—is this:
I survived.
That doesn’t make me innocent.
It makes me honest.
They think survival should look quiet.
Like gratitude.
Like humility that never raises its voice.
But what they don’t understand is that survival is loud.
It’s messy.
It’s angry and aching and sometimes comes out wrong.
When the system fails you as a child,
when no one protects you,
when the only thing you trust is the silence of a locked cupboard—
you don’t grow up normal.
You grow up alert. Reactive. Volatile. Searching.
And sometimes, that search leads you to dark places.
I’m not proud of everything I’ve done.
But I’m not defined by it either.
I’ve stood in courtrooms.
I’ve signed papers that made my shame official.
I’ve followed orders, served time, owned what was mine to own.
What they got wrong is thinking I was excusing it.
I wasn’t.
I was explaining how I got there.
That’s not the same.
Some people want me to vanish.
To tuck myself behind apology.
To erase every trace.
To live in exile because I dared to keep living after being judged.
But if you want repentance, it’s in my songs.
If you want honesty, it’s in my writing.
If you want blood, I’ve already bled for this.
I didn’t grow up thinking I’d be famous.
I grew up wondering if I’d live long enough to matter.
What they got wrong… is assuming I asked to be worshipped.
I didn’t.
I asked to be understood.
But when that failed, I asked to be left alone.
And when that failed, I wrote.
Because that’s what survivors do.
We document.
We remember.
We carve meaning out of the wreckage.
And no, I’m not perfect.
But I’m still here.
Still building.
Still trying to become someone I can look in the mirror and not flinch.
That’s not sainthood.
That’s survival.