Writers 
This morning,
I stood in front of the mirror
long enough to notice
how well I have learned to look fine.
There she was—
the girl who says “I’m okay”
with a mouth full of unsaid things.
I wanted to ask her
when she became so good
at carrying storms
without letting anyone hear the thunder.
She didn’t answer.
She only looked at me
with those tired eyes
that have memorized too many goodbyes.
I thought about the things
I never grieved properly—
the friendships that died quietly,
the versions of myself
I left behind in places
I promised I would never return to,
the dreams I folded away
because disappointment
was beginning to feel familiar.
I have spent so much time
trying to be easy to love
that I forgot
love was never supposed
to require me
to disappear.
So I am learning
to take up space again.
To say no
without writing an apology afterward.
To leave doors closed
when everything inside me
knows I have already outgrown the room.
To stop calling my exhaustion
a lack of gratitude.
To stop mistaking survival
for living.
Some days,
I still meet the old version of me
in the mirror.
She is frightened.
She thinks every ending
means she has failed.
I want to hold her hand
and tell her:
No, sweetheart.
Some things ended
because they were never meant
to follow you here.
And here—
this strange, unfinished place
between who I was
and who I am becoming—
is where I am finally learning
not to hate myself
for being a work in progress.
I don’t have a beautiful ending yet.
I have scars.
Questions.
A few dreams
with their edges still intact.
I have mornings
when getting out of bed
feels like an argument
I don’t want to have.
But I also have this:
I keep choosing tomorrow.
Even when yesterday
leaves its fingerprints
all over me.
Maybe that is what courage looks like.
Not becoming fearless.
Just becoming someone
who refuses to abandon herself
when fear arrives.
So tonight,
when I meet the woman
in the mirror again,
I won’t ask her,
“Are you finally enough?”
I’ll ask,
“Are you finally yours?”
And for the first time,
I think she might smile
before answering.
Yes.
