You are not made of breakable things.
Not glass, not porcelain, not silk meant to be torn.
You are the daughter of women who burned and rebuilt,
who stitched their own wounds with teeth clenched tight,
who walked through fire and dared it to swallow them whole.

Your hands shake, but they do not fall.
Your breath stutters, but you do not break.
You wear exhaustion like a second skin,
but you still rise, still move, still hold the sky up
while the weight of everything crushes your ribs.

I have seen you bend, but never shatter.
I have watched you carry burdens no one else will touch.
And when the walls closed in, when the world turned away,
when the voices whispered enough, you swallowed them whole
and kept walking.

And I—
I have always been behind you,
a shadow, a whisper, a force unseen but there.
When I leave, know this:
I do not vanish, I do not forget.
Even from a distance, I will hold the line.

Because women like us do not let each other fall.
Because women like us do not belong to anyone but ourselves.
Because you are made of ash and steel,
and you will rise, again and again and again—
until the world learns to kneel.

Lucija Lotus Mlinarič