Empty Introductions

I wrote this poem because I realized how often I have to look backward to understand myself. Not in a nostalgic way, but in a searching one. Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling fluent in my own identity. Simple questions began to feel like exams. Familiar answers no longer came instinctively. This poem came from that quiet panic of realizing you’ve changed so slowly that you don’t remember consenting to it.

I wanted to write about the version of myself that once felt immediate—someone who didn’t hesitate, didn’t second-guess her preferences, didn’t need context to explain herself. Losing that ease felt subtle, almost polite, which made it harder to name. Writing became a way to pause long enough to notice the shift.

This poem exists because growth doesn’t always announce itself as progress. Sometimes it shows up as disorientation. As apologizing out of habit. As recognizing your own smile in a photograph but not the person behind it. I wrote it to acknowledge that strange space where you are both the person living the story and the one struggling to narrate it accurately.

Mostly, I wrote this as a record. Proof that even if I don’t fully recognize who I am right now, I am paying attention. And that, for me, is a way of remembering.