I learned a language I was never meant to speak,
where silence was safety and power was weak,
where touch held a tension, where closeness had cost,
where something was taken before I knew it was lost.

No one had asked me, no choice had been mine,
these words were placed in me before I knew the design,
so I grew up fluent in something untrue
a story of worth that I never outgrew.

I turned my body into something to spend,
a way to feel safe, a way to pretend,
offering pieces, again and again,
just to feel wanted, to soften the pain.

And now I can see it, the shape of the thread,
the times that I followed what I never had said,
lying with people I didn’t desire,
answering duty instead of the fire.

Not drawn by longing, not led by the heart,
but pulled by a whisper that tore me apart,
you should, you must, this is how you stay,
this is the price that you quietly pay.

Because maybe then they would choose me, remain,
maybe then I would matter again,
and when I was chosen, it felt like a prize,
a flicker of worth in someone else’s eyes.

As if my value was held in their need,
as if being wanted was all I could be,
as if their desire could accomplish my goal,
though afterwards, always, I never felt whole.

So I learned to perform, to become what they see,
to shape-shift myself into who I should be,
to read every moment, to give, to comply,
to silence the truth I was too scared to try.

A body responding, a heart pushed aside,
a self that could vanish while staying outside,
sometimes I felt everything, burning and bright,
the closeness, the rush, the illusion of light.

And sometimes I drifted, I vanished, went numb,
a softness of nothing, a place I’d become,
floating above it, untouched by the weight,
a quiet protection when it was too great.

Both were my lifelines, both helped me survive,
both kept something fragile inside me alive,
because buried beneath it, a truth had been sown-

I’m worthy when wanted, I’m valued when chosen.

Not something I picked, not something I knew,
but something that formed before I ever grew,
so I traded my truth just to not be alone,
confused love with attention, made obligation my own.

I gave them performance instead of my soul,
because somewhere survival had taken its toll,
and deep in my chest lives a child still there,
who learned how to cope with what wasn’t fair.

She doesn’t need judgment, she doesn’t need blame,
she carried the weight, she protected the pain,
even now when I reach, when I say yes too fast,
she’s trying to keep me from losing at last.

She isn’t my enemy, not something to fight,
she learned how to keep me within someone’s sight,
to stay close, stay wanted, stay safe in the room,
even if it meant I would quietly lose.

But now I can see her, and something has turned,
a softness, a truth that I’m starting to learn….
I don’t owe my body to be kept or held,
I don’t need to perform just to not be expelled,
attraction can wander, be quiet or slow,
and I’m still allowed to not fully know.

Attention isn’t love, though it mimics the same,
connection’s not built on a rehearsed name,
I can pause in the moment that whisper appears…..
you should….echoing softly through the years.

And ask something gentler, quieter, true:
but is this something I actually choose?

And maybe I won’t have an answer just yet,
maybe desire feels tangled, offset,
buried beneath all the ways I survived,
that’s okay, I’m still here, still alive.

Because my worth was never something to earn,
not something another could give or return,
it wasn’t created in being desired,
or proven each time that somebody admired.

It lived before touch, before eyes, before need,
before anyone labeled me worthy to keep,
it lives even now, steady and free,
untouched by who chooses or doesn’t choose me.

And maybe one day I will finally see
what it means to be loved without losing me,
to be chosen without having something to prove,
to be held without needing to move.

To feel in my body a home that is mine,
not a stage to perform on, not something to trade,
but a place I can rest, unafraid and aligned.

And until that day comes, I will soften my view,
meet myself gently in all that I do,
with patience for parts that still carry the past,
with kindness that finally, finally lasts.

Because I am still here,
and that quietly means
there’s a hope that survived
through the unseen.

A truth rising slowly, steady and deep:

that love can be given
without having to keep,

that I can be whole
without being consumed,

that something within me
is still being renewed.

And step by step, breath by breath,
through the grief and the death…

I am learning, at last,
to come home…
To no longer be lost and roam,
I finally have the key ,
That will bring me home to me.