Writers 
I have walked through mornings
that forgot how to bring the light,
through evenings heavy with questions
and nights that stretched beyond my sight.
I have carried dreams in trembling hands,
afraid they might break beneath their weight,
yet somehow, beneath every disappointment,
my heart still whispered, wait.
I have known the silence of rejection,
the ache of doors that would not open,
the loneliness of chasing something
when the road ahead was broken.
I have watched others reach the mountains
while I stood somewhere below,
wondering why their flowers were blooming
while mine refused to grow.
But I learned that roots need darkness
before they reach for the sun,
and every river meets a stone
before it learns how to run.
The seed does not curse the soil
because it cannot see the sky;
it simply breaks itself open
and discovers how to rise.
So I am becoming.
Not all at once,
not without fear,
not without scars
from the battles that brought me here.
I am becoming the person
my younger self hoped I would be
someone who can look at the mirror
and finally recognize what she sees.
I will not measure my journey
by another person's pace.
I will not call myself a failure
because I haven't won the race.
Some stars appear at midnight,
some flowers bloom late,
and some beautiful beginnings
are born from seasons of waiting.
Perhaps my story was never meant
to be written without pain.
Perhaps the thunder had to visit
before I could appreciate the rain.
Perhaps every tear I have carried
was watering something unseen,
something waiting beneath the surface
to become everything I dreamed.
So let tomorrow find me standing,
even if yesterday left me torn.
Let hope become my compass,
and courage become my dawn.
Let every scar remind me
that I survived what tried to stay.
And when the world asks who I am,
I will not look away.
I will say:
I am the dream that kept breathing.
I am the heart that would not surrender.
I am the unfinished story
still writing itself together.
I am not where I started.
I am not yet where I will be.
But I am moving.
I am growing.
I am becoming.
