Exposed

I don’t think I understood the exchange I was making.

Writing has always been private currency. Something I traded with myself. I wrote the poems, they held me together. Fair deal. No witnesses. No explanations required.

But somewhere between deciding this would be a book and actually touching the work, the rules changed.

Now I keep thinking about hands that aren’t mine holding these pages. Eyes moving across lines that were never meant to perform. People meeting me out of order. On my worst days first. In lowercase. With no context and no apology attached.

That part messes with me.

These poems were written when I wasn’t trying to be understood. They were survival notes. Voice memos to myself. Proof I was still here even when I didn’t feel present. And soon they won’t belong to me in the same way. They’ll exist without my permission to explain them.

There’s something tender about that. And something terrifying.

I keep asking myself if I’m ready to be seen like this. Not polished. Not resolved. Just honest in a way that doesn’t ask for approval. Honest in a way that might make people uncomfortable. Or worse—indifferent.

I think about keeping them hidden. About closing the folder. About how easy it would be to let them stay mine.

But then I remember that I didn’t write these to disappear with them.

Maybe fear is just the sound the door makes when it opens.