SMILES THAT CUT, ROOMS THAT REJECT ME

Watching them smile at me hurts,

Not the honest kind of smile,

The polite, plastic one,

The kind that lives on the face but carries a knife behind the back,

I chose not to go as low as they did,

Not because I am weak,

but because sometimes humanity is better than stupidity.

Sometimes dignity is the loudest way to say,

“I see you, I just refuse to become you.”

From the first day, I was a problem in a room I had just entered,

Apparently, I smelled,

Apparently, I didn’t shower,

Apparently, my existence needed to be reported to management like a faulty machine.

Imagine being new, trying to survive, and already being reduced to a complaint.

Welcome to the team, right? 😂 

These were the same people who were supposed to make the space lighter,

The same stamp on our papers,

The same country on our tongues,

Funny how shared origins don’t guarantee shared humanity,

I learned the hard way that just because you come from the same place doesn’t mean you come with the same heart.

I walked into a team that saw me as a threat from day one,

Not because I announced myself as competition, but because sometimes your presence alone is enough to trigger insecurity, so I tried to serve in spaces where I was never wanted, smiling in rooms that rehearsed my exit, working in offices where my name was being passed around like a warning label.

They said they couldn’t stand me, then smiled in my face like we were all fine.

In the changing room, they switched languages to dress their cruelty in privacy,

mocking my clothes, my looks, my difference, I laughed along sometimes, not because it was funny, but because survival teaches you strange coping skills.

Later, I realized the words I thought where jokes were actually insults.

Congrats to me for learning a new language of disrespect 😖 grrrrr,

I kept smiling 😊, because apparently, I’m very good at being the bigger person in very small rooms, at some point, it wasn’t just gossip, it became strategy.

People started looking for my downfall like it was a team-building exercise, in the office, leadership suddenly developed a hobby,

finding something wrong with everything I touched, other people’s mistakes were “lessons.” but mine were “carelessness.”, same error, different judgement, love that for me eeeh,

I was made to stay late for two months as punishment for one mistake 😢 

Two months,

Meanwhile, I watched others make similar or worse mistakes

and walk away with a gentle reminder and a smile.

Apparently, consequences come in different sizes depending on whose name is attached.

Then came the threats dressed as concern!

“Some leaders want you out.”

“Senior management is complaining about you.”

“I’m persuading HR not to fire you.”

“And you are lucky because I have good relationships with them.”

Ah yes.

Nothing says leadership like making someone feel constantly disposable and calling it protection.

I have been drained,

Not tired,

Drained,

The kind of exhaustion that lives in your bones, not your muscles.

The kind that makes you stare at the ceiling in the morning and ask,

“Again?”

And still, I wake up,

I show up,

I smile,

I perform wellness like it’s part of my job description.

Because professionalism doesn’t care if your spirit is bruised.

It just wants you on time.

But the truth?

I have had enough.

I have no space left in my heart to absorb this kind of smallness,

No more room for silent swallowing of disrespect,

No more capacity for pretending this doesn’t hurt,

I am full.

Not with anger, with clarity.

And here’s the part that keeps me standing when everything else is trying to push me out!

Regardless of how I am treated,

I work with dignity.

I respect the value of every minute I am paid for.

I don’t steal time,

I don’t poison rooms,

I don’t trade my character for approval,

They can question my presence,

They can rewrite my story,

They can smile in my face and sharpen their opinions in private,

But they cannot say I did not show up with integrity.

I will not become bitter to fit into a bitter environment.

I will not shrink to make insecure people feel tall.

I will not let cruelty turn me into something I don’t recognize.

Watching them smile at me hurts 🤕 🤕,

But watching myself stay human in a place that rewards inhumanity?

That’s the quiet victory they will never understand 💪💪💪,

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