by Clancy Fearson
December 1, 2025

There are nights she still wakes up gasping —
heart pounding like fists on a locked door,
hands trembling as if the past
is clawing its way back through her skin.
PTSD doesn’t knock.
It storms in, uninvited,
spilling old shadows across the floor,
dragging her through memories
she never wanted to keep.
But on her arm,
ink coils in black and emerald —
a Medusa who meets every stare head-on.
The snakes are not just serpents;
they are guardians,
coiled tight around her wounds,
hissing at the nightmares: stay back.
Once, they called Medusa a monster.
Once, they blamed her for her own curse.
But survivors know the truth —
monsters aren’t born,
they’re made by the hands that harm.
Her tattoo is not just art.
It is a story written in survival ink.
Every line is a scar turned into scripture,
every scale a prayer to herself:
You lived through this.
You can live through the flashbacks, too.
Some days, the weight is heavy —
panic breathing down her neck,
triggers like tripwires waiting to snap.
But when her eyes fall to that Medusa,
she remembers:
she has venom now.
She has teeth.
And she has the right to exist,
even in the dark.
She wears her Medusa like a shield,
like a crown,
like a truth the world cannot look away from.
She is not what was done to her —
she is the one who walked through it and lived.
And if you look at her and mistake her power for rage,
you’re right.
Because she’s done apologizing
for the way she learned to survive.