In a brief squeeze, my chest wheezed—
there goes my heart, falling out of itself,
into another rhyme, into another line.
Queue me up for feeling less than myself,
lost in being so lost.

Letting go of old grievances just to make
room for new ones today.
“I’m not okay”—
but I won’t say it, because you MAYBE
won’t think of me the same.

Sometimes I’m determined, other times,
indulgent. I look like I’ve got it together,
but beneath the surface,
I’m exhausted—
completely out of order.
Struggling. Sweating.
But short on words to explain what’s wrong.

I’d be seen as too much for speaking my
pain aloud— but pain is always louder
when it’s silent.

So I speak now for those who are just like
I am.
We are We:
navigating identity crises in these
stretched-out teen years of our twenties.
We are plenty— and still enough to
surround each other in love that counts,
instead of letting life count us down
or count us out. We will rise. Together.