Reine Sobre Mim [ 360p ]
For years, I lived as a subject in the kingdom of others. I handed the scepter to expectation, to the gaze of the crowd, to the loud voices that told me who I should be. I learned to curtsy before approval, to measure my worth by the applause of a room that was never truly mine. In that court, I was a servant—polite, accommodating, exhausted. I built altars to "should" and burned my own desires as offerings.
To declare "reine sobre mim" is to perform an act of quiet revolution. It means waking up and deciding that your own voice is the one that finalizes the law of your life. It means looking in the mirror and seeing not a collection of flaws to be edited, but a sovereign face—the face of someone who has survived, who has softened and hardened in all the right places, who no longer needs permission to exist. reine sobre mim
The words feel like a coronation whispered in two tongues. Reine —French for queen, carrying the weight of Versailles, of elegance, of a crown not borrowed but earned. Sobre mim —Portuguese for "about me" or "over me," intimate and grounded, like the turning of soil before planting. Together, they form a manifesto: I am the queen over my own story. For years, I lived as a subject in the kingdom of others
There is a Portuguese word, saudade , that has no perfect translation. It is the longing for something that may never return. But sobre mim is the opposite of saudade —it is the presence of claiming what is here, now. It is the refusal to live in the ghost of a past self or the mirage of a future one. The queen does not rule over what was or what might be. She rules over this breath, this choice, this moment. In that court, I was a servant—polite, accommodating,
Since this is a poetic and slightly ambiguous title, I will interpret it as a reflective, first-person essay about self-sovereignty, identity, and the reclaiming of personal power. Below is an original essay written in English, but structured to honor the lyrical, bilingual spirit of the title. "Reine sobre mim."
But a queen does not beg for a throne. She recognizes that the throne has always been within.
So I write these words as my coronation oath. I will not wait for someone to place a tiara on my head. I will not seek validation from a kingdom that does not see my light. From this day forward, I am reine sobre mim —queen of my choices, my body, my time, my story. The reign begins now. And it is magnificent.
