still, something was missing

I wrote Still, Something Was Missing during a moment of quiet reckoning—when I realized I had followed every role, every script, every version of “doing the right thing,” yet still felt disconnected from myself. This poem is a conversation between the woman I became and the girl I once was, the part of me that learned early how to perform, please, survive, and stay small in order to belong.

It explores motherhood, love, duty, and identity—not as failures, but as places where devotion can slowly replace self-recognition. What was “missing” was never success, family, or safety; it was me. Writing this was an act of remembering, of giving voice to the seven-year-old who learned to be brave too soon, and of choosing to live consciously for my children by first seeing myself clearly.

This poem marks the moment I stopped asking what was wrong with me, and started listening to who I had always been.