I Am

I am—

not the names I’ve gathered,

nor the titles that cling

like stickers from hands that never asked

where they should be placed.

I am—

not the roles I play

when the world pulls up a chair

and waits for me to perform.

I am—

not the stories whispered about who I should be,

should know,

should become.

I am the quiet beneath all that noise—

the breath that rises

without requirement,

the space that softens

when nothing is asked of it.

When the labels fall away,

I do not disappear.

I widen.

I loosen.

I return.

There is a calm that lives

only in this un-naming—

a stillness that says:

you were always enough

simply by being.

And in that gentle truth,

I rest.

I breathe.

I remember.

I am.

And that is everything.