The Reckoning

THE RECKONING A poetry collection by Samantha Lucas She didn’t burn quietly. She became the fire. These aren’t poems. They’re the bones of every woman who stayed. Who kept loving in the silence. Who kept forgiving what she never deserved to carry. This book is a burial ground— for the girl you abandoned to be loved, for the dream you clung to while he shattered it, for every time you smiled through betrayal because it was safer than being alone. You will not leave this book whole. You will claw through every page like it’s your own journal, find your reflection in every broken stanza, and realize: it was never just you. This is the collective scream. The rage of generations. The last love letter before we set the house on fire. Welcome to the reckoning. He should’ve never given you a pen.