Finding Myself
Poetry about identity, self-recognition, and learning who you are when you stop defining yourself through the people and pain that came before.
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An inbox fills with strangers mistaking exposure for confidence and access for consent; the modern trench coat just happens to be a phone.
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A stranger leads with the least interesting thing about himself and waits for admiration that was never owed.
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Another unwanted message earns exactly one response: delete. Attention and access are not the same thing.
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There were a thousand ways to get her attention—conversation, humor, kindness, curiosity—and he chose the least interesting one.
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A phone does not turn exposure into permission; digital flashing is still entitlement dressed up as a notification.
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A digital memory resurfaces a year later, raising the uncomfortable question of how many people received the same intimate performance.
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Consent is not complicated: ask, wait, respect the answer. A notification is never permission.
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The questions changed from who will love me to what part of myself I buried, and suddenly the cards became kinder.
