Hear me

Hear Me

I stand in the quiet room of my own making,  

words pooling like rainwater at my feet.  

They have been waiting—  

heavy, unsaid, carrying the weight of every almost and maybe.  

Hear me.  

Not the polished version I wear for the world,  

but the trembling one beneath:  

the child who still believes in open doors,  

the adult who has learned how many stay closed.  

I am the late-night thought you almost remember,  

the story I swallow before it reaches my tongue,  

the laugh that cracks open into something softer,  

something that aches with honesty.  

Hear me when I say I am trying—  

trying to hold joy and sorrow in the same two hands,  

trying to believe my voice is not too much,  

not too small,  

just enough.  

I carry galaxies of what-ifs and I love yous  

that never quite made it past my lips.  

They orbit inside me, bright and restless.  

If you lean in,  

if you stay long enough to let the silence stretch,  

you will hear the quiet thunder of a heart  

that has never stopped hoping  

someone would choose to listen.  

Here I am.  

Hear me.