Always being told what to do as a child,
shut me down before I could learn how to speak.
I learned that silence was safer,
than saying the wrong thing.
Now I'm older,
but the echoes still whisper:
wait,
ask,
don't decide.
I know so much,
yet my hands still hesitate.
I still look around
for someone to nod,
to tell me it's okay
to take my own step.
It's strange,
how freedom can feel like fear
when you've never held it before.
But lately,
I'm learning to trust the voice
that was buried under obedience
to move even when no one says "go,"
to speak without permission,
to listen to the sound
of my own understanding
and finally call it enough.
I'm no longer that little child,
I've come to know