Still Revising My Poems…..

I wrote the first draft in a rush,

somewhere between midnight and bottled up memory.

The words came out raw,

honest in a way that scared me,

poor grammar that degrades me.

I didn’t care about commas or rhythm;

I just needed to get it out.

*

It wasn’t perfect,

But it was real,

So I left it.

*

like how I sometimes leave my thoughts unfinished,

hoping time will polish them for me.

*

A few months later,

I found it again,

creased at the edges,

ink faded but echoing loudly.

*

I read it and cringed,

too emotional,

too certain,

too much of who I used to be.

*

So I started editing.

Moved a line,

cut a phrase,

softened what once felt sharp,

added stuff I’d learned along the way.

*

It’s strange how rewriting a poem

feels like rewriting yourself,

you realize what you no longer believe in.

You see what you tried to hide

between metaphors.

The lies you masked as truth

to survive the chaos.

*

A year passed.

I came back again.

I had lived more,

lost more,

understood silence better.

*

The poem felt foreign,

like a letter from an old friend

who still thinks you’re the same.

*

And I changed it again,

not because it was wrong,

but because I was different now.

*

I deleted “always.”

Replaced forever with “for now.”

I shortened the ending,

To let it breathe…

*

the way I’ve learned to breathe

when things don’t go my way…:)

*

By the third revision,

the poem was unrecognizable,

yet still familiar,

like looking in the mirror

botched with cosmetic edits

and still seeing your parents eyes.

*

Some nights I wonder

if I’ll ever stop rewriting things…

poems, memories, myself.

*

Even when I tell myself it’s finished,

I still come back.

I still adjust the rhythm,

still question the truth.

still struggle to accept “it is good.”

still wrestle with “it is finished.”

and the breath of peace.

*

Maybe that’s the curse of being alive,

we’re all unfinished drafts,

edited by time,

revised by loss,

rewritten by love.

*

Because nothing we write,

and no one we become,

Is ever truly done.

*

Yet the One who began it all,

the true Creator of our stories

holds every draft, every line,

every loss and every love.

*

We forget sometimes,

that our edits, our pauses, our rewrites

are never separate from that hand.

*

And only when we surrender,

trust the One who holds the whole page,

do we see ourselves

as complete enough.

Even while we keep becoming…

Even while we are still revising…

*

It is freeing not to be the only author.

Somewhere beyond my vision,

another revision has preceded it all.

*

And in the still knowing of God,

I am enough.