The Unbroken Soil

My body is a ledger of survival. Every mark, every ridge, every knot of flesh is an entry—a transaction between me and the world that has tried, in turns, to swallow me, shape me, or spit me out. In Mozambique, we say "a árvore cresce conforme o vento"—the tree grows as the wind bends it. But what happens when the wind never stops blowing? When it comes not in seasons, but in ceaseless, howling gusts that tear at your roots? When the storm isn't weather, but war? When the drought isn't lack of rain, but lack of mercy? This is not a story of straight growth. No proud baobab stretching undisturbed toward the sun. This is the story of a tree that grew sideways—twisted by war, gnarled by loss, split by lightning strikes of betrayal, but refusing nonetheless to break. My scars are not just wounds. They are a language. And the invisible scars—the ones that don't show on brown skin—those are the loudest of all. The ones carved by the "where is your father?" hissed at me in schoolyards. The ones etched by the "you eat like a beggar" tossed at me by cousins whose tables I cleared. The ones branded deep by the silence of a country that didn't miss me when I was gone.