I Took Myself Home First

I used to think
being loved meant
a door had to open
from the outside.

A hand.
A name.
A voice saying,
there you are,
as if I had been missing
until desire
gave me permission
to exist.

How sweet.

How dangerous.

How quietly
I disappeared
inside that kind of waiting.

I dressed myself
for rooms
that did not see me.

I softened my laugh.
I made my hunger polite.
I called it romance
when really
I was standing
outside my own life
hoping to be invited in.

Then one night,
nothing dramatic happened.

No rain against the window.
No heartbreak song
burning in the background.
No beautiful disaster
to make the story prettier.

Just me.

Bare feet on cold floor.
Mascara gone soft
at the edges.
My reflection looking back
like a girl
I had been avoiding
for years.

And she did not ask
why I had left her.

She only said,

come here.

So I did.

I came back
with all my foolish wanting,
all my sharp little fears,
all my love
still warm in my hands.

I stopped calling myself
too much.

Too loud.
Too needy.
Too soft.
Too hard to hold.

I stopped shrinking
just because someone else
had small hands.

And maybe that was
the first real love story.

Not being rescued.

Not being adored
into existence.

Not becoming beautiful
because another mouth
finally named it.

But standing there
in the quiet room
and choosing myself
with my whole chest.

Messy.
Unimpressive.
Unapologetic.
Alive.

I lit the lamp.
I washed my face.
I put on the dress
I had been saving
for eyes
that were never meant
to see me first.

Then I looked in the mirror
and did not flinch.

Not because I was perfect.

Because I was mine.

And oh~

what a dangerous thing,
to belong to yourself
after years
of auditioning for love.

What a sweet little rebellion,
to touch your own heart
and find it still beating.

What a scandal,
to become the girl
who does not wait
at the door anymore.

I am not lonely
when I am with me.

I am not unfinished
when no one is watching.

I am not half a song
because nobody sang along.

I am the whole music.

The breath before it.
The room around it.
The hand
turning the volume up.

So let them wonder
who made me glow
like this.

Let them search
for the lover.

Let them ask
whose name
did this to me.

I will smile.

I will keep walking.

I will know.

It was me
who came back.

It was me
who stayed.

It was me
who stopped leaving
flowers
at the locked door
of anyone
who made me beg
to be seen.

And when I looked
at the girl
in the mirror,

really looked,

I did not ask her
to become easier
to love.

I opened my arms.

I said,

you do not have to earn
your own arms.

You do not have to audition
for your own life.

Come home.

I am already here.

Words from the Poet

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If this piece lingered with you, these two posts might be lovely to read next.