📲I wish I didn’t depend on the pings
To feel seen.
And didn’t feel a pang
When my phone
Remains stubbornly mute.

🎵With no joyful thrill or ding
To ornate
My long days, to hush my cloying
Unease,
To answer my chirps.

💅🏾I wish I could meet notice
And indifference 
With the same swagger 
and self-assurance.
Always serene, confident.

💯That numbers would mean
Nothing.
That my self-esteem 
Would remain 
Stoically incommensurable.

🪞I wish the shards of silence
Didn’t sting.
Didn’t chip at my armour
Of gauze,
Didn’t bring questions.

👀Is it the gaze of others then,
That gives light?
Does it give life too?
Do I exist,
When no voice answers?

💋When no eyes see and read,
And smile?
When hard work just flops
And beauty
Seems vain and lonely.

🪴When my fertile inner garden
Looks bare
For the outsider
Looking in.
My twinkles are trinkets.

✨I dig and carve what looks to me 
Like gold.
But it’s dull, really. The sparkle’s
Mine only.
My bliss is not infectious.

👸🏾I wish I’d stay aloof,
Regal.
But that’s just wish.
Full of thinking,
I stay low and apart.

📝I used to think there was
A recipe.
Maybe others just smell
The reek
Of self-loathing and see the stumble.

💃🏾The stumble of self-doubt. 
How eager
I must look. To please and
Fit in.
Or to stand out and shine?

🙈What do I want? After all
I don’t.
I don’t like the spotlight.
And numbers
They’re infinite, ne’er enough.

🏡My nook’s cozy. Confidential
And warm.
Not confident but it’s me. Curious
And winding.
Jumping from ideas to dreams.

🦌I have so many fantasies.
They’re real.
They keep me company.
Indeed,
Why would I shout and be bright?

💭My whispers are sweet and homely.
They’re mine.
What’s many eyes to a full heart?
The poems…
They hem me in. Joy is within.

©K.N.A