Still Writing

I thought a degree

would open a door

and I would step through it

carrying sentences like a key.

But the door didn’t open.

Life redirected me, quietly,

into work that does not ask

for my major or my dreams.

Still, I write.

In the margins of my days.

In poems that breathe at night.

In articles, in a blog

where my daughter grows between lines.

There were moments

I mistook detours for failure,

moments I wondered

if loving words was enough.

But writing stayed.

It taught me how to notice,

how to hold meaning,

how to speak gently to myself

when plans unraveled.

My career may not wear my degree,

but my mind does.

My heart does.

And everywhere I go,

I carry the language

that made me who I am.