MERYEM LAHLOU

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To the children who suffered in silence.

To the girls who learned to hide their pain.

To the survivors whose stories were never heard, believed, or allowed to be told.

To every person who carried something they were never meant to carry alone.

 

Cut Your Wings and Fly is for you.

 

To the parents who failed to protect the children who trusted them.

For every moment of suffering dismissed, every truth left unheard, every innocence that silence helped take away.

 

To everyone else, I ask you to listen to the pain some children learn to carry quietly. To believe what is difficult to hear. To feel, even for a moment, the weight they were asked to bear far too young.

 

One child in pain is a whole society in dysfunction.