This song is about releasing the weight of expectations that were never meant to be carried. It speaks to growth, boundaries, and the understanding that not every struggle is meant to teach others—some are simply part of our own becoming.
Lyrics
Mmm…
They keep telling our story
Without ever living in our skin
JourNiee…
I learned beauty from broken mirrors,
From watching mama fight the world.
They critiqued our hair, our skin, our figures,
Then asked why we don’t feel secure.
We didn’t choose this battlefield,
Didn’t write these rules or lines.
So don’t reduce what made us real
To confidence with no design.
We’ve been healing out loud for generations,
Turning pain into crowns somehow.
So don’t confuse your observations
With understanding us now.
Why are we being corrected in a room
that has never corrected harm done to us?
We speak from scars, not attitude,
This truth was earned, not discussed.
You can affirm universal beauty
without minimizing the specific struggle
Black women have endured around ours—
Don’t blur our pain to feel comfortable.
Why is it always someone outside the fire
Explaining how the heat feels?
Speaking for Black American women
Like we aren’t standing right here, still.
If you’re not a Black American woman,
Tell me—what qualifies your voice?
You analyze our lived experience
Like survival was a choice.
We don’t need interpreters for our truth,
Or permission to name what’s real.
Respect starts with listening first,
Not rewriting how we feel.
Why are we being corrected in a room
that has never corrected harm done to us?
This isn’t hate, it’s lived proof,
This is love that’s been bruised.
You can affirm universal beauty
without minimizing the specific struggle
Black women have endured around ours
Let us speak without editing our hearts.
We are not your lesson plan,
Not your headline or debate.
We are daughters of endurance,
Still graceful under weight.
This ain’t bitterness—
It’s boundaries.
This ain’t division—
It’s truth finally breathing.
Why correct us instead of the harm?
Why police our tone, not the scars?
We bloomed where we were never watered—
And that’s the beauty you can’t disregard.
Let us speak…
And listen long enough to hear us.