Simply me

I am not the sun that rules the skies,
Nor starlight's glint in lovers' eyes.

I am the hush before the dawn,
The echo once the song is gone.

Not crowned in gold or garbed in flame
But still, I stand, and stake my name.

Not built of myth or ancient lore,
No marble steps, no temple door.

My heart's a cottage, small and still,
That leans against the greening hill.

Its windows open wide to breeze,
Its silence deep, a kind of peace.

I am the laugh when none are near,
The whispered truth, the shadowed tear.

The scribbled line, the cup of tea,
The honest pulse of simply me.

No polished gem, no perfect prose,
But roots that clutch where wild things grow.

I am the book with dog-eared ends,
The kind of soul that bends for friends.

Not always right, but always real,
A patchwork heart that learns to feel.

I falter, stumble, bruise, and mend
I bloom, I break, I break again.

I am the quiet in the storm,
The scar that gives the wound its form.

The child who dreamed beneath the tree,
The echo of who I still might be.

A paradox of light and ache,
Of giving more than I can take.

I am not fame, nor loud applause,
No golden crown, no holy cause.

But I am breath and blood and skin,
A war I sometimes lose within.

A story inked in fits and starts
With chapters made of many hearts.

I’ve held the weight of others’ grief,
And hid behind a smile’s brief leaf.

I’ve known the nights that silence drains,
And danced alone in summer rains.

I’ve loved too much, and spoken less
Afraid of words I can’t redress.

Still here I stand—no need to prove
The right to stay, to weep, to move.

I carry worlds you’ll never see—
The jagged truths that made me me.

Not lesser for the roads I’ve trod,
For every flaw’s a gift from God.

So if you seek a polished shell,
A tale the bards would rise to tell

You’ll find instead a soul laid bare,
With broken truths I still must wear.

But in the mess, in all I be,
There breathes the heart of simply me.