The Warrior Within Collection

They looked at my differences

And mistook them for flaws,

Counting every struggle

As proof I would fall.

A child who didn’t fit their mould,

A bird with broken wings,

A cast-off soul,

An unknown thing.

A label they handed me

Before they knew my name,

Judging my whole future

Before I’d played the game.

But they never saw

The darkness I survived,

Or the strength it took

Just to stay alive.

They called me defective,

Broken from the start.

Yet every wound they pointed at

Became armour for my heart.

Being different

Is not a reason to count me out.

I had potential from the start,

Even when they filled me with doubt.

Now I stand before them,

Stronger than they believed.

What they called defective,

I call steel.

Defective?

Bring it on.

Yeah, I’m different —

But I’m not wrong.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

15/6/26

They saw the trembling hands,

The ceiling I stared at until dawn,

The moments I came apart at the seams.

What they never saw

Was the woman who survived them.

They never saw the wars I carried

Behind a steady face,

Or the days I dragged myself forward

When every step felt heavier than the last.

They never saw the nights I lay awake,

Holding myself together

With nothing but sheer determination.

I have lost battles.

I have fallen hard.

I have cried in places

Where no one could hear me.

But every time life knocked me down,

I found a way to rise.

Grief sat at my table,

Hopelessness wore my name,

And a thousand voices whispered

That it would be easier to disappear.

Yet… I’m still standing regardless,

Not because I was fearless,

Not because I was strong,

But because somewhere inside me

A stubborn spark refused to die.

Now I look at the marks they left differently,

Because they are not proof of what broke me.

They are proof of what couldn’t.

Every wound,

Every loss,

Every painful lesson

Became part of the woman I am today.

I roar in the face of those

Who tried to conquer me.

I am not unbreakable,

I am stronger than the things

That tried to break me.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

10/06/26

Through the mirror of my wounds

I found my voice —

You left me without a choice.

My broken pieces aren’t fixed

Or erased,

But like a phoenix I rise

Without shame,

Without blame.

My scars still mark what you took.

I found fire in the ashes,

Reborn, etched deep in my skin —

A soul that walks within.

You tried to break me

Time and time again —

Fuck you.

I found power in my pain.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

No steel,

No sword,

No shield raised high.

Her battles don’t echo

Across open fields —

They sit quiet,

Behind closed doors,

Inside her head,

Inside her chest.

That’s modern warfare —

Internal,

Constant,

Unseen.

She wakes up tired

Before the day even begins,

Ties her strength together

Like it won’t fall apart today.

She fights in silence —

In swallowed words,

In steady breaths

When everything inside her

Is screaming.

No medals for this warrior,

No applause

From a watching crowd.

Just survival

Disguised as living.

She walks through the world

Like she’s fine —

Like her hands haven’t

Held pieces of herself

She thought she’d lost.

They call her strong.

But they don’t see

The nights she nearly broke,

The mornings she rebuilt

From nothing

But inner strength.

She is not fearless.

She is afraid —

And moves anyway.

That’s the difference.

That’s the war

She fights

In this modern world.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

14/4/26

I’m done,

With all the manipulation,

That had me not believing in myself.

And all the times you left me crying in the dark.

Wondering about my mental health.

I’m done,

With putting your fires out and getting burnt.

And feeling  abandoned,

Like I didn’t count and …

Constantly getting hurt.

I’m done,

With the fake love and lies

That had me twisted up in knots. 

All you left me with was nothing but,

“forget- me- not’s.”

I’m done,

With putting you before me and treating myself like,

I was second class.

And all the times I cried out hoping you’d notice me,

Feeling fragile like I was made of glass.

I’m done,

Looking at life from your perception

And always looking for perfection. 

As I beg and plead for your attention,

But only getting rejection.

I’m done,

With your lies as they swallow me whole

And turn me inside out.

Your fake alibis that had me screaming in silence,

Not daring to shout.

I’m done,

 With the importance you put on all the

  “ likes” and “clicks “ .

That had your demons running around …

Doing tricks.

I’m done,

With  you thinking other things,

Were more important than what we had.

And trying to figure you out,

Almost going crazy mad.

I’m done,

 With you making the drugs and drink …

Your first priority.

Feeling like I don’t matter 

And having to put up with your hypocrisy.

I’m done,

With your late nights down the pub,

While I drowning in my insecurities.

Yet,  they turned out to be your online,

Fan club and your priority.

I’m done,

With giving you second chances,

When I see you give other girls second glances.

With the extra gym classes

And looking at you behind rose-tinted glasses.

I’m done,

With being called crazy when I pulled you up, on your excuses.

That were definitely hazy.

With all the rent-free time you have in my head

And all the things I never said.

I’m done,

Chasing something that was never mine.

I’m done giving you all my Fucking time.

I’m done,

Done,

I’m SO…

Fucking…DONE.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025🪶

#DislexicPoet

7/2025

I learned to dig deeper

When the soil turns cold

And nothing wants to grow.

Roots don’t ask permission.

They split stone

In the dark.

Strength isn’t gentle.

It’s pressure.

It’s patience.

It’s the crack

Before the bloom.

When everything feels unmoving,

Push harder.

Cry louder.

Stay longer.

Even broken ground

Can grow forests.

And the rock

That once stopped you

Will one day

Be the thing

That holds you upright.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025🪶

#DislexicPoet

10/11/25

For years I bent my spine

To fit their cages,

Smiling politely

While my teeth

Memorised their names.

I learnt early

The world loves a quiet creature,

Something without scandal,

Something soft

That can be handled.

But a wolf

Was never built

To live on scraps —

It waits,

Scanning maps.

The hunger inside me

Ran root-deep.

It was never cruelty —

It was instinct,

Old and patient,

Finally waking from sleep.

Now I walk differently,

Head high,

Eyes open in the dark.

The forest recognises its own —

We carry that distinct mark.

The shadows do not question me.

And when they whisper

“She’s changed,”

They’re right.

I didn’t become cruel,

I simply remembered

What I was —

And wolves don’t apologise

For their teeth

Or their bark.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

6/3/26

I am the strong one,

The one they all run to

When their world is burning.

I smother flames with my bare hands.

I swallow my own fire

So, yours doesn’t consume you.

Take a piece of me if you must,

Lean hard —

But don’t mistake me

For unbreakable.

I’ll be your rock,

Your shoulder to bleed on,

Your anchor in the storm.

Borrow my strength,

But hear this:

Every time I give,

I lose a little more of myself.

Take what you need.

Your pain has value —

So do you.

But so do I.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

 #DislexicPoet

12/8/25

She rose.

From the places

I thought I’d buried.

She carried the pieces

I couldn’t hold.

She whispered,

Not yet…

Keep fighting,

Little warrior.

My warrior was born

In the dark.

Built from scars.

Trained by pain.

She knows every wound

That shaped me.

But she never ran.

She stood.

Even when I couldn’t.

With her bonfire heart,

She burned through doubt.

She rose with fire

Etched into mine.

She taught me even if I fall,

To stand again.

I am more than the fear.

I AM THE WARRIOR WITHIN —

Broken,

Rebuilt,

Risen,

And

Still fucking standing.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

07/01/25

At times it was hard

Being authentic —

But in being who I truly was,

I was free.

My life was never perfect —

I came into this world

Kicking and screaming,

And I never stopped.

Fighting for my own survival

Was at any cost.

Normal was never my fate.

I can truly say

I never really hated.

I was unapologetically broken.

So as I rest my head

For the last time,

Remember me not with softness,

But with a fucking lionesses roar.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

10/12/25

Darkness holds me,

Light carries me —

None greater,

Neither less.

Some try to cut themselves in half,

Banish the shadows,

Pretend to be pure.

But to me,

Wholeness

Is born of both.

I am the silence and the scream,

The wound and the healing,

The shadow and the flame.

I defend the weak

And face the strong.

To deny either

Is to deny myself.

I am balance.

I am both.

I am darkness and light

In equal measure.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

2025

I’ve run with wolves

And I’ve run alone,

Learning both the warmth

Of the pack and the ache of exile.

I don’t beg to belong,

I lead by instinct

And by pulse that still beats

After every battle.

I will not be governed or conform.

I am wild,

But tender,

And empathy lives inside me

For those I love.

I am power

And awareness in one.

My pack are my life —

Be aware of the fucking Alpha

Who has something to live for.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

2025-21/2/26

Don’t pick fights

You can’t win,

When the cards

Aren’t stacked

In your favour.

I seek leverage,

Not glory.

Ego and chaos

Hold no currency —

Logic and precision

Reign supreme.

Even the sea bows

To the stone —

It sails with the wind,

Not against it.

The wise one waits

For the current to turn,

And victory belongs

To those who wait.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin 2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

1/8/25

I didn’t lose it.

I handed it out

To people

Who didn’t deserve it.

I bent.

I swallowed words.

I made myself smaller

So others could stand tall

On my back.

No more.

I stopped asking for permission to exist.

I stopped calling survival gratitude.

I stopped mistaking endurance for love.

Power does not mean being loud for others.

It means being unavailable for harm.

It remembers every time I stayed

When I should have left.

And I promise

To myself

Never again.

I am not healed.

But I am armed.

And my power

Stays with fucking me.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

 #DislexicPoet

8/1/26

The stuff that has me scratching,

Trying to get it out —

The same stuff

That stitched itself

Into my skin.

More than the nights

I curled into the fetal position,

Silent,

Pretending the world

Could not hear me break.

I am more than the things

That tried to claim me…

The ghosts run wild in my head,

The memories that think

They still own me.

I am more than the voice

That trembles

When old wounds

Come rushing back.

I am more than knots

In my stomach,

More than the scars

They left behind.

I am the breath after the sob,

The shake after the storm,

The rise they never

Fucking expected.

Am I not human.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

24/11/25

The spark beneath my skin,

The bonfire of a mind

That refuses to dim.

My words don’t line up

Like soldiers.

They scatter, rebel,

Fight each other for space.

But I write anyway,

Because this is how

I stay alive.

This is how I tell the world

I’m still here.

Call it rage,

Call it magic,

Call it dyslexia,

Call it what you like —

I call it mine.

I’m done pretending

My fire is small.

I burn loud,

Messy,

Crooked,

Wild.

Every mistake they thought

Would break me

Became heat

That fuelled my fire.

I don’t want quiet.

I want truth.

And if truth comes out

Jagged and furious,

Then let it.

I burn honest —

And that’s more dangerous

Than perfection

Will ever fucking be.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

26/11/25

You called me love,

But I was the tremor,

A raging pulse before destruction.

You tried to break me,

But I learned your violence,

Fed on your silence,

Became the echo you still

Hear in the dark.

I am the mirror that cracks

Your waking sleep,

The breath behind your

Nightmares,

The taste of regret on your tongue.

You made me this—

Your masterpiece of rage.

For I am reborn,

Rebuilt for purpose.

I carry every bruise,

Broken bone,

And rejection as my armour,

Retribution as my shield.

Now I walk through your peace,

And you better fucking tremble—

For I am Alpha now.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

2025-21/02/26

You always looked down your nose at me,

But to your horror, I thrived.

You loved the thunder,

But ran from the quiet.

Now it’s just us.

No pretence.

No masks.

No mercy.

You smiled while I fell.

You said love

And meant control.

I burned through every version of myself to get here.

Every scar you gave me found its voice tonight.

I built this table from my pain.

You licked it clean.

I know your poison.

I know your real face.

Now I sit at the head of the table,

And see you — small, as you are.

Raise the glass.

Drink deep.

Choke on every lie.

This is the reckoning.

My truth.

My fucking crown.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2025 🪶

#DislexicPoet

02/11/25

Not in ways people can see.

Not in poetry.

But in the quiet places

Where no one comes to save you.

Some fractures are not loud.

They don’t shatter glass.

They don’t announce themselves.

They happen slowly —

In kitchens,

In bedrooms,

In rooms full of people

Who choose to ignore what you’re going through.

I cried while asking why,

Waiting for an answer

That never came.

Only the aftermath remained.

The silence of others

Taught me more than their comfort ever could.

It taught me who would watch,

Who would turn away,

And who would laugh

While I bled.

Pain moved into my veins,

Settled deep in my bones,

Made itself familiar.

That was the price I paid

For loving loudly

In a world that whispers cruelty.

Every scar in my heart

Is not weakness.

It is record.

It is evidence.

It is proof

I survived what was meant

To finish me.

Now I stand in the wreckage,

Every scar a lesson

Revealing itself

In the way I now see the world.

And from the ashes of their hate,

I don’t just rise.

I take back my name,

My voice,

My power,

My crown.

I reign.

A fucking Queen.

🖤 © NCarolAkinfolarin2026 🪶

#DislexicPoet

2025-21/02/2026