Talking to the Lines That Made Me

I speak to you

the way one speaks to a mirror

that remembers more than the face.

You were born from my shaking hands,

from nights where silence sat beside me

and asked nothing

except to be understood.

Do you remember

how I hesitated before the first line?

How the paper felt too white,

too honest,

like it could expose every doubt

I tried to hide?

I gave you my unrest,

my half-healed wounds,

the thoughts I couldn’t explain aloud.

You accepted them without judgment,

turned them into curves, shadows,

unfinished truths.

I ask you now—

are you angry that I stopped too soon?

That I erased parts of you

because I feared what others might see?

You don’t answer with words.

You never do.

You respond by existing,

by breathing quietly on the wall,

by reminding me

that imperfection is not a flaw

but a signature.

I tell you I am tired.

You tell me I am still creating.

I tell you the world didn’t understand me.

You tell me the world was never the goal.

You hold my past in charcoal and ink,

my present in layered strokes,

my future in the empty spaces

I left untouched.

If one day I am gone,

you will still speak for me—

to strangers,

to rooms I never entered,

to someone who will stand before you

and feel less alone.

So stay here, my drawing,

my quiet rebellion,

my proof that I existed

and dared to leave a mark.

I will return to you again—

with new hands,

new doubts,

and the same need

to be seen.