God, are you there? It's me… the one you skipped.

Don't worry. I'm not here to monologue you into submission. I know you're busy - ice caps melting like forgotten popsicles, children crumbling beneath rubble, the slow apocalypse of cable news and mascara-streaked pop stars. You're fielding whole continents of agony. Me? I'm just background noise. Static. One wrong little girl who grew up into an even worse woman. A girl you, it seems, dodged with the grace of a practiced flinch.

I get it. Maybe I was too small, like one of those songs nobody hears but still hurts to write. Perhaps I was too stubborn, stomping my way through childhood like I owned legs that worked. Maybe – probably - I just wasn't what anyone expected.

They wanted a saint, you see. My parents. Good people, in that tragic way people get when they're busy performing pain for an audience of angels. Our house always smelled faintly of disinfectant and desperation. Pity thickens in the walls like mildew. Hope like rust. They prayed with their whole bodies, hunched like question marks. "Our little one," they'd whisper, like I wasn't already listening. Like I hadn't already learned how to read the grief in their glances. They wanted me to be a symbol. Quiet. Holy. Grateful for scraps. But instead… they got me.

A system glitch in torn jeans and combat boots, teeth too sharp for their hymns. I walked like the world had betrayed me - and it had. But my spine? My spine was straight. A damn exclamation point. I didn't bow. I didn't whisper. My smile? It was all edges. And my tongue? It never learned "sorry," no matter how many rosaries rattled through the halls.

And it hurt. Oh, God, it hurt. Not because I was broken. But because they didn't know what to do with unrepentant fire. They said I was "different." What they meant was wrong. And then they tried to grind me down into something familiar. Something palatable. They spoon-fed me Sunday school platitudes and punishments wrapped in concern. They asked me to be sweet. To sit still. To erase myself for their comfort. To be a "good girl."

But I wasn't. I had a band, God. A real one. Six strings, bloodied fingers, and basslines that rattled loose teeth. We played smoky bars with broken sound systems and floors that stuck to your shoes. The air was always thick with the smell of cheap beer and cigarette smoke, as if the whole place were exhaling regret. But there, under the orange burn of stage lights, I was something mythic. Something untouchable. Loud enough to be undeniable.

I sang like every lyric was a wound I'd decided to weaponize. And those twenty or so lost kids in the crowd? They believed in me. Not as a tragedy. Not as a lesson. But as a beast. Some guys loved me, too. Actually, loved me. Not out of pity, but hunger. They pulled me close like they meant it. Called me their queen. Kissed my scars like scripture. Reverent. Wild. They didn't flinch from the wheelchair, or the braces, or the stories etched into my bones. But they didn't stay.

Not because I was broken - but because I was too whole. Too loud. Too unwilling to trade love for silence. I didn't know how to shut up - not even for romance. Not even when I loved them with every fraying nerve. And when I couldn't walk anymore, God? I learned how to walk over them. Not out of pride. Out of survival. But none of that was enough to buy my way back into the arms of the people who were supposed to love me first.

To my family, I was neither a girl nor a woman nor an artist. I was just shame in a leather jacket. They wanted a child who whispered, "Thank you for putting up with me." They got me yelling, "Screw you if you can't love all of me." And you, God? Where the hell were you?

Let me be clear. I'm not asking you to fix me. I don't need your divine version of duct tape. I'm not praying for healing. Or peace. Or some Hallmark brand of grace. I just want you to look me in the eyes and take this in. Don't flinch. Don't vanish behind the veil like they all did.

Remember when I was nine? When I used to beg for "normal legs"? I used to close my eyes so tight it hurt, praying I'd wake up healed. I offered up every birthday wish, every dandelion, and every coin tossed into every fountain.

But you know what, God? I take it back. Keep the legs. My soul stands taller than they ever could. I wouldn't trade the falls. The surgeries. The nights I cried myself hoarse. I wouldn't erase that night I collapsed on the bar's back stairs, ribs bruised, breath ragged - only to drag myself back onstage for the encore. Because of that? That was mine. That was holy.

I survived, not just in the Hallmark-movie sense. I endured. Therapy. Silence. Rejections that went unspoken but were never unnoticed. Boys who ran. Relatives who claimed to know your will better than they knew my name. And I didn't die. Not even when they prayed I'd be "saved from myself."

And here I am now. No divine intervention. No parental benedictions. Just me. Me - and this story. Because you may never answer. But I no longer stay silent. Maybe you skipped me. Fine. But I'm still here. Tall, even when seated. Rough around every edge. Sarcastic to the marrow. Full of fire. Full of noise. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of heaven. But at least I'm not pretending to be an angel. I know what side of heaven I'm on. The one they built a fence around. But newsflash, God: I've got wire cutters, a spotlight, and a setlist of sins.

So no, I'm not your miracle. I'm your mistake—with a mic, a middle finger, and nothing left to prove. And still, somehow, I rise. Not in glory. In truth. In combat boots and eyeliner, laughing at the sky. Look down, God.

I dare you.