by Nnenna
There are days I stand before the mirror
and I don’t see one face.
I see a choir of selves.
Each voice, each stare, each pause in breath
a different piece of me.
There’s the bold one, the loud one.
She walks with thunder in her throat.
She kissed fear once and left it behind.
Sometimes, she forgets she ever cried.
There’s the quiet one
soft as dusk.
She knows the weight of silence
how to fold it like linen
how to wear it like second skin.
The wonderer
never still, never sorry.
She maps her life with questions
not destinations.
Always in between
and maybe that’s the point.
But deeper still
is the hurt one.
She lives in the shadows of old sentences
where words bruised more than they healed.
She doesn’t cry loud.
Her sorrow is a whisper that stains glass.
There is the girl who waited.
Waited for love to stay.
Waited for time to soften.
Waited for the ache to name itself.
She grew patience like a garden in winter.
Even when nothing bloomed
she stayed.
And then truth steps forward.
She doesn’t knock.
She arrives.
Rooted, ancient
holding every part
every pain
every hope.
She is not kind because she must be.
She is kind because she has seen everything
and still chose light.
These are the reflections hanging in my mirror
not fragments
not contradictions
but a chorus.
And when they breathe in unison
the wind listens
the night sky leans in
the earth exhales
the sea quiets.
And I
remain.
Nene's Corner 