Melissa takes the stage with her Taylor guitar, settling onto the stool with practiced ease. She’s maybe twenty-five, with bleached hair and tattoos covering both arms. Her first song strips me raw within three lines, a story about choosing music over stability, about her parents’ disappointment, about believing in herself when no one else would.
The room holds its breath, everyone seeing pieces of their own journey in her words. When she finishes, the applause thunders, and I watch her face transform with the realization that she’s been truly heard.
The second performer, Diane Washington, must be pushing sixty. She talks about writing songs for forty years, about the men who told her she was too old, too Black, too woman to make it in country music. Then she plays a song that makes those excuses sound like the garbage they are, her voice carrying the weight of every rejection, every dismissal, every moment she chose to keep going anyway.
Tears stream down faces throughout the room. Zara wipes her own eyes, her hand pressed to her chest like she’s physically holding the emotion in.
The third slot belongs to a duo, teenage sisters from Kentucky who harmonize like angels and write lyrics sharp enough to cut. They sing about growing up in a small town wheredreams are considered dangerous, where girls are taught to want less, expect less, be less.
My chest tightens with each performance. These women aren’t just sharing songs; they’re sharing scars, turning wounds into weapons, pain into power. The collaborative finale we usually do feels too small for what’s happening here.
“Before our last performer,” I find myself saying, back on stage between sets, “I want to say something.”
The room quiets, expectant.
“Three years ago, I stopped performing. Stopped writing. Stopped believing my voice mattered.” The words tumble out unplanned. “I told myself I was better behind the scenes, supporting other artists. Safer there, definitely. But also . . . smaller.”
Jovie watches from the bar, her expression soft with understanding.
“Recently, someone reminded me that hiding isn’t the same as healing. That supporting others doesn’t mean silencing yourself.” I think of Darian, probably pacing his apartment right now, respecting my need for this space while somehow still being present in his absence. “So tonight, if you’ll let me, I’d like to share something. Not as your venue manager, but as another woman who’s been afraid to take up space.”
The applause starts before I finish speaking, building to something that makes my throat tight. I retrieve my guitar from the office, my hands shaking as I settle onto the stool. The lights feel both foreign and familiar, like meeting an old friend who’s changed but is still recognizable.
“This is a song I wrote with someone who wouldn’t let me hide,” I say, tuning quickly. “It’s about breaking patterns, about choosing different even when safe feels easier.”
The first chord rings out clear and true. My voice, when it comes, surprises me with its strength. Three years of silencehaven’t weakened it; if anything, it carries more weight now, more truth.
“I built these walls with careful hands,
Each brick a lesson learned,
But you walk through them like smoke,
Like you know which bridges burned . . .”
The room disappears. There’s just me and the guitar and words I’ve been afraid to say. The second verse flows into the bridge, my voice building, finding its power.
“You say I’m worth the broken glass,
The sharp edges, the blood,
But I’ve been cutting myself on safety
Thinking it was love . . .”
The chorus hits and I hear gasps, actual gasps, from the audience. Not because I’m perfect, but because I’m real. Raw. Refusing to apologize for the space I’m taking up.
When I reach the final verse, the one Darian and I wrote together in that late-night session, I feel something shift. Not just in the room, but in me.
“So here’s to different, here’s to trust,
To letting someone see,
The woman underneath the armor,
The one I used to be . . .”
The last note hangs in the air. For a moment, complete silence. Then the room erupts. Not polite applause, but something primal, celebratory. Women on their feet, tears streaming, hands raised in triumph.
