I’ve been thinking about what it means to become myself, one page at a time. That phrase keeps circling back, like a song I can’t shake. Sometimes I wonder if I’m really growing into myself, or just catching glimpses of who I am between lines that don’t always fit together.
Yesterday, I was writing in my usual half-slouch, music humming low, when this line landed: “I carry softness like a pocket stone.” I didn’t plan it. It just appeared. It felt warm in my chest, a little weighty but not heavy. For a second, I just sat there, letting the room be quiet around me. I’m always surprised when tenderness shows up first, before I even know what I’m trying to say. There’s something queer about it, the way gentleness insists on being present, even when the world wants me to armor up.
I used to think my writing had to be sharper, more certain. But lately, the messiness of drafts feels truer. I don’t have to carve out a perfect version of myself. Some days, I just let the words be awkward, soft, unfinished. My Blackness, my queerness—they aren’t decorations in the poem. They’re the pulse under every line, the reason I reach for language that feels like home.
There’s a quiet comfort in not knowing exactly where a line came from. Maybe becoming myself is a series of these small, surprising arrivals. I’m learning to trust the moments when the writing feels a little off-kilter, a little tender. That’s where I find myself, page by page. Today, that feels enough.