I stayed, even then.

A chorus of goddesses. A final act of defiance. A lineage that refused to kneel.

The goddesses they silenced?
We remember.
In our blood. In our breath.
In the thunder that lives in our bones.

This poem is for every woman who stayed—
when love left,
when the gods fell silent,
when the world said: shrink.

It’s for the ones who carry entire lineages of rage and light in their bodies.
The ones who weren’t just born—they were summoned.

This is the final piece in The Crown Was Never Yours,
my poetry collection about reclamation, wrath, and rising.

This is not just survival.
This is ancestral defiance.

---

🖤 Read the poem below

or return to it when you need to remember who stands behind you.

---

50. I stayed, even then

I stayed,
even when the earth cracked beneath my ribs and begged me to lie down in it,
even when they told me survival would make me hard and I chose to stay soft,
even when the loneliness curled its fists and punched me through the nights,
even when love turned its back and silence slept beside me—
I stayed.

and I did not stay alone.
behind me stood every goddess they ever tried to shame, tame, silence, erase,
goddesses whose names were once whispered over firelight, called out in labor, in war, in grief, in rage.
they gathered like smoke behind my spine,
and when I could not rise, they rose through me.

behind me stood Inanna, queen of descent and resurrection,
who stripped herself bare and walked through seven gates into hell and still came back crowned in light—
I carried her in my blood when I walked back from every man who thought breaking me made him powerful.

behind me stood Hecate, torchbearer of the in-between,
goddess of thresholds and things too haunted to name—
I held her in my mouth when I said no for the first time and the world tried to make me take it back.

behind me stood Isis, mother and magician,
who rewove her beloved from pieces
and taught me that nothing was ever too shattered to be sacred again.

behind me stood Kali, wild-eyed and blood-stained,
who destroyed to protect,
whose rage was holy,
whose dance cleared illusions,
whose hands I felt in mine when I tore out the lies they told me about myself.

behind me stood Lilith, first woman and first refusal,
who walked out of paradise rather than shrink herself—
I channeled her when I stopped apologizing for taking up space.
I channeled her when I stopped begging to be chosen.

behind me stood Freyja, who cried tears of gold and still led the Valkyries—
I honored her every time I loved and still fought,
every time I held beauty and destruction in the same breath.

behind me stood Mazu of the sea,
protector of women lost in the waves—
I heard her voice in the undertow of my own despair
and she reminded me I am not made to drown.

behind me stood Amaterasu, who once hid in darkness,
and whose light had to be danced back into the world—
I carry her light in every sunrise I dared to witness again.

behind me stood Brigid, goddess of midwives and makers—
I channel her in every word I write,
in every verse that stitches my heart back together.

behind me stood Aphrodite, not as lover, but as sovereign,
goddess of sacred desire and ocean-deep self-worship—
I call her name every time I refuse to shrink my hunger
or dull my glow to make someone else feel worthy.

behind me stood Baba Yaga, old Slavic witch of the woods,
wild, unknowable, feared by fools and honored by the brave—
I summoned her when I stopped fearing the dark
and started becoming it.

behind me stood Mokosh, my ancestral Slavic earth-mother,
goddess of fertility, women, weaving, fate—
she wrapped herself around me in every moment I thought this pain would never end,
and reminded me I was woven from stronger threads than loss.

behind me stood Perunica, goddess of storms and lightning,
Slavic daughter of thunder—
she screamed through me when my voice broke open,
when I let the grief become thunder, not silence.

behind me stood Živa, goddess of life, love, and spring,
from the old Bosnian tongues,
whose name means alive—
and she is the one who whispered
you are not broken—you are blooming again.

behind me stood every goddess whose name was lost
when temples fell and men rewrote the myths.
every face carved in stone and turned into silence.
every priestess who bled into the soil to keep the truth alive. every woman burned, buried, bound, and still singing.

I am not the first.
I am not new.
I am their living echo,
their revival,
their wildest revenge.

I stayed—
because they stayed through me.
I stayed—
because they knew I would.
I stayed—
and because of that,
the story does not end here.

I stayed, even then.
and now—
I reign.

© 2025 Solena Vyhra. All rights reserved.
This work is part of the poetry collection The Crown Was Never Yours.
No part of this poem, including text or visual design, may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.
For inquiries, permissions, or collaborations, please contact: solenavyhra@gmail.com

Illustration and layout by Solena Vyhra.
Typography: Special Elite (poem titles), Signature (author tag).
Published on Substack via Where Silence Becomes Ritual.

🖋 Subscribe to Where Silence Becomes Ritual
Because some poems weren’t meant to be polite.
They were meant to split you open and remind you that rage is sacred, softness is survival, and silence?
Silence is where the truth learns to speak again.

If you carry grief like armor, if you love too hard and speak too rarely—
this space is yours.

🖤 Poetry. Myth. Burnout. Bones.
💧Witchy truths. Nurse shifts. Sacred rebellion.
📖 Come for the ache. Stay for the ritual.

Tap subscribe. The rain is about to begin.