THE SACRIFICE: Leveraging Everything That Cost Me Everything
(Monologue / Spoken Word)
They watched me light the match and thought it meant I was finished.
They called it self-sabotage.
They called it too much.
They didn’t know I wasn’t destroying my life—
I was demolishing the cage.
I was burning the costume.
The version of me built to keep other people comfortable.
The version trained to smile on command, shrink on cue, apologize for taking up space.
I’m a relentless survivor.
This isn’t collapse—this is strategy.
Sacrifice was never my punishment.
Sacrifice became my weapon.
I didn’t lose people.
I removed leverage.
I didn’t lose comfort.
I canceled the bribe.
I didn’t lose approval.
I unplugged from the machine.
Anything I’m attached to can be used to steer me.
So I started cutting cords—clean, surgical, intentional.
Not chaotic. Calculated.
I let friendships fall away that only loved my obedience.
I let rooms empty so the echo could stop lying to me.
I let money change, status shift, titles fade.
And every time something left my hands,
my grip on my own life got stronger.
That’s the part they can’t explain—
how loss becomes leverage,
how subtraction creates more presence than addition ever could.
I’m not mourning because I’m not confused.
Transformation charges full price.
It takes everything fake first.
Then it asks, Do you still want the real?
I said yes.
I said yes when the easy path sat there dressed up as peace.
I said yes when the familiar prison tried to call itself home.
I chose pain that produces growth over pleasure that produces stagnation.
Truth over belonging.
Purpose over permission.
I didn’t break.
I shed.
I didn’t lose my mind.
I gained vision.
I started seeing empty smiles, dead-eyed loyalty,
communities that require me to shrink,
love that costs me my truth.
So I got quiet.
Solitude. Power. Clarity.
In the silence where weak voices used to echo.
Then something irreversible happened:
I stopped being threaten-able.
You can’t bargain with someone who already burned the bargaining chips.
You can’t control someone who refuses the bait.
That’s when I became untouchable.
Not because I’m hard.
Because I’m free.
I built an empire inside myself—
fortified by sacrifice,
defended by my willingness to lose everything,
sustained by one uncompromising law:
I would rather die real than live fake.
They’ve been accumulating.
I’ve been eliminating.
They’ve been decorating cages.
I’ve been breaking them.
I carry joy through sacrifice like someone who discovered a secret:
when I’m willing to die for what I’m becoming,
every day I survive is a victory.
Every breath is a bonus.
Every moment is borrowed time—
invested in my vision.
So let them stare.
Let them call me extreme.
Let them whisper, What happened to you?
Here’s the truth:
I happened to me.
And I’m not going back.
By Kandayia Ali - @JagudEye