The Knowing That Haunted My Childhood

They called me naive
a child who misunderstood the world,
a girl with too much imagination
and too little sense.

But innocence was never my sin.

I heard truths in the silence
long before anyone dared speak them.
I watched futures ripple through a room
before footsteps ever reached the doorway.
I felt the shift in someone's spirit
before their voice betrayed the tremble.

I wasn’t guessing.
I was remembering.

Adults mistook my knowing
for childish confusion
but confusion is loud.
My knowing was quiet,
steady,
ancient.

I saw moments unfold
before people chose their next breath.
I recognized endings
before beginnings took shape.
I sensed death approaching
before the body understood
it was time to let go.

And they still called me naive.

Maybe because it was easier
to believe a child is mistaken
than to admit she sees
what they refuse to face.
Easier to dismiss
the one who perceives the unseen
than to confront the unseen itself.

I learned to keep my visions
pressed behind my teeth,
to let people walk into their fate
even when every bone in my body
knew the path they were choosing.

Prophecy is a lonely inheritance.

It isolates before it guides.
It haunts before it teaches.
It reveals before it protects.

I was never naive
I was simply young,
carrying the weight of knowing
no child is meant to hold.

And as the veil thinned,
as shadows sharpened
and the air shifted into warning,
I understood something
I wasn’t supposed to understand:

This gift
was not gentle.
It was not safe.
It was not a blessing
the way the world defines blessing.

It was a doorway.

And I
barefoot, trembling,
too wise for my age
was already standing
on the threshold.