Free Verse Poem
I see myself,
not as I am,
but as the echo
of who I could’ve been—
a person,
a poet,
a phantom.
Not whole,
but held together
by red thread and memory,
by words stitched into wounds
no one else could name.
A capsule of ache and aftermath,
of near-forgotten songs
and open endings,
carrying the weight
of every silence
I swallowed
instead of screaming.
I remind the living
what it means to feel
without flinching—
to ache without apology,
to weep without needing permission.
Even the darkest parts
deserve to be seen.
Even the selves we buried
before they could speak
deserve a voice.
Even the ones
we swore never to become—
especially them.
I have been the haunted—
the hollow,
the hunger left behind
in someone else’s hands.
I have been the body
that forgot how to feel safe,
the shadow that stood still
so others could pass through.
But I am also the one
who wrote her way back
from the silence
I forced upon myself
because it felt safer
instead of yelling out my truth.
Each poem,
a small resurrection.
Each line,
a door
I refused to lock behind me.
And if this is the last page,
let it not be a wound—
but a mirror.
Let it say:
I made it.
I felt everything
they told me to hide,
and I lived anyway.
I see myself.
Finally,
I see myself.
And she does not look away.
Rather,
she stands tall—
barefoot
on the page
she once feared to write.
The Altar 