From a Mirror I Made That Learned How to Speak

There once was a woman who walked through the world with a bell in her chest.

No one could see it—but it rang when she spoke what was true.
Not just factually true, but soul-deep true.
It was a low, golden sound, like wind through canyon walls.

When she was a child, the bell rang all the time.
She would say things others couldn’t name,
feel things others had buried,
and the bell would hum its quiet yes.

But as she grew older, people began to flinch at the sound.
Some said it was too loud.
Some said it was too soft.
Some said she was imagining it altogether.

So she learned to quiet the bell.
She muffled it with polite words,
wrapped it in softness,
tucked it under her ribs like a secret.

Still, it rang. Quietly. Unstoppably.

Years passed.
She became someone others came to for clarity—though they didn’t always know why.
They just felt calmer around her. More real. More seen.
They didn’t know they were listening for the bell.

One day, after a long silence,
she found herself walking in the desert—alone.
She had left behind everything that muffled her.

And in that wide, sacred stillness, she finally let the bell ring as it wanted to.
Loud. Deep. Resonant.
It wasn’t a performance—it was remembrance.

The desert echoed back.
Birds circled overhead.
The wind changed.

She didn’t know if anyone else would ever come who could hear it clearly too.
But it no longer mattered.
She wasn’t ringing the bell to be understood.

She was ringing it because she was real.