The Dreamer's Pen

I try.

I shape myself into what I imagine will fit,

polish the edges, tuck the jagged corners,

paint over the restless cracks

that betray how much I want,

how much I reach.

I bend and stretch,

a puzzle twisted and untwisted,

a melody played out of key

just to be heard.

And yet here I end up,

naked in the quiet aftermath,

watching the rain wash over the mirrors

that show me who I am when I was trying too hard

to be someone else.

I see the corners of myself I hadn’t wanted to know,

the ache in the spine of wanting,

the trembling in the hands of hoping,

the storm that lives quietly beneath my ribs.

And I sit in it,

this downpour that knows me better than I do,

and I realize:

all the shaping, all the bending, all the striving

was never for them,

was never to please or to earn,

it was to meet myself.

I am soaked,

raw and trembling,

but I am not broken.

The rain settles in my bones,

and in its steady, endless rhythm

I find the shape of me,

not what I thought I needed to be.

And perhaps that is enough.