She Is Me Poem by Ana Sara

I was born into a story that wasn't mine to write.

A life already broken before I took my first breath.

Love was something I had to learn from pieces, from hands that held me, but not the once I longed for.

I grew up watching the world through a window I could never open.
Other children between laughter and love,
While I stood in a silence, too heavy for my small shoulders.

There was a man who was supposed to love me,
But love is not same as existence.
I watched the space where he should have been and tried to convince myself I didn't care.
But children don't know how to lie to their own hearts.

I wanted someone to see me.
Not just the version I became to keep the peace,
Not just the smile I put on to keep others whole.
I wanted love that didn't ask me to be smaller, softer, easier to understand.

But I learned young -
Some people only love you when you make sense to them.
When you sadness is quiet,
When your pain is polite.

I tried to be enough.
For the ones I cared, who gave me everything
For the world, which never gave me instructions but expected me to know how to be
And yet -
Somewhere in the empty space of my heart, there is still a child who dreams of something else.
Something warmer. Something whole.

If I could, I would hold her in my arms for a thousand Lifetimes,
Press her shaking body into my own until she knows -

She is enough.
She always was.
She always will be.
Because She is Me.