By: Naa Doodua Doodu (Anthonia The Little Observer)
I want to be heard, but I am afraid to be seen.
I want someone to read my words and say, “I felt this too.”
But I am afraid they will look past the words.
And ask, “Who do you think you are?”
Not all poets stand on stages.
Some of us pray in corners.
Some of us write our loudest lines in the quietest voice.
I do not recite. I do not perform.
I observe. I carry. I write at night when the world cannot see me shaking.
They say, “Share your gift.”
But what if my gift is not good enough?
What if my rosary is not holy enough?
What if my pain, dressed in prayer, still looks like pain?
Expectations scare me. Eyes scare me.
To be seen is to be measured, and I am tired of being measured.
So I stay behind my poem.
Like a child behind her mother, peeking out, hoping to be noticed,
praying not to be.
And yet, if no one ever sees the poet,
Will they believe the poem is mine?
If I hide so well, who will prove that I was here?
That I felt this, that I wrote this?
Perhaps proof is not being seen but being written at all.
The paper remembers what the crowd forgets.
The ink stays when applause does not.
And Mary, who holds my words, saw me even when I was hidden.
I fear being seen, yet I long to be understood.
I want my words to travel where my courage cannot follow.
To touch a heart I may never have the strength to face.
So I remain here, somewhere between the page and the person,
between the desire to be known and the safety of being hidden.
I have not conquered my fear. I have only given it words.
And perhaps, for now, that is enough.
Beautiful piece