Young Words

I wrote before I understood—

before language learned how to wait.

My hands moved faster than my life,

ink spilling thoughts I couldn’t yet name.

Back then, words were guesses.

Fragments of storms I hadn’t survived.

I wrote hunger without knowing its taste,

loss without knowing who would leave,

hope without knowing how fragile it is

when you finally hold it.

Those sentences were clumsy,

too honest, too loud,

reaching for meaning like a child

reaching for the moon—

certain it was close,

unaware of distance.

I reread them now

with older eyes.

I see fear hiding between commas.

I see courage pretending to be confidence.

I see a younger self

trying to warn me,

trying to remember something

before it ever happened.

I didn’t understand the words then,

but they understood me.

They knew what I would become

before I did.

They waited patiently

inside notebooks, margins, forgotten files,

aging quietly as I learned to live.

Now I understand

what I was trying to say.

Not perfectly—

understanding never arrives whole.

But enough to listen differently.

Enough to forgive the rough drafts of myself.

Those young words weren’t wrong.

They were early.

They were brave enough to speak

without permission,

to tell the truth

before I knew how much it would cost.

And maybe that’s the point of writing—

to leave messages for the future

from versions of us

who didn’t yet have the language

but had the feeling.

I wrote before I understood.

Now I understand

that I was always

learning how to listen.