Little ladybug.
You need not worry of the company
You try so hard to keep.
Leaves fall to the ground
Just to be grown again.
Little ladybug, don’t worry your pretty little head.
The sky doesn’t fall forever, you know.
Although your world is sometimes shaken
And sometimes to the core,
The sun and moon will still chase each other
As if it were the first time they met.
Little little ladybug,
You need not worry.
Perfection is only a mere illusion,
Projections of your elders past failings
Pushed onto you with only the
Purest intentions for you to succeed.
Little ladybug
Everything you learn is what you own,
Everything you earn is what you deserve
And you are deserving of so much.
No amount of good grades
Or instagram likes
Or parental approval
Will determine it or weigh it.
Because you being here makes you worthy enough.
Just you.
Little ladybug, you need not worry
Of fitting in.
Those who share your spots will always
Find you
And grow with you.
Little ladybug keep your head up
And keep flying.
If the sky’s the limit, the clouds are just a checkpoint
You have all the time to make it there,
And you will make it there
Little ladybug.

More times than not, caused by those around us.
We have no control over the currents,
We know not of the power waves hold.
Hold on, keep holding on.
In time you will learn,
We are our own life raft,
Our own savior.

This may come as a shock to some,
Maybe not to all but,
I’m just now learning to love myself.
Was never taught so
I am just now,
almost 21 years on this earth
Learning to love & appreciate
Me.
This past year has taught me
So much about myself.
About what I’ve let slide,
Underappreciated, taken for granted.
Even up until the very night
The clock struck 12.
I don’t know what has come over me
These past couple months
But
I yearn to know more about me.
Instead of looking at my life
Through a 3rd person lens,
Puppeting around with no mind,
No control.
Epiphany after epiphany
I step more and more into the position
Of living my life as I please.
Doing things that I’ve convinced myself not to.
Leaving when I’ve had enough,
Saying how I feel as soon as I feel it.
These are the things
That say “I love you”
In many different ways.
I am still learning what it is to
Prioritize
Me.
But it feels too good not to.
I’m becoming comfortable with the fact
That
Not everyone is going to be happy with me
All the time.
That
The sky doesn’t fall forever.
That I am the one living my life
All I have is me,
Why put myself through things
That I don’t see for myself?
Why struggle?
What more can I get?
What more can I have?
I have always craved more,
I’ve just always been too afraid
Of the pain
Of shedding skin.
Of change.
I love that I’m learning to hear my intuition
More clear.
I love that I’m doing the things that make me anxious,
In a healthy way.
I love that I am learning to speak my mind,
Regardless of what the other person may
Think or feel.
I love it all.
A retired people pleaser in the making.
I still have long to go,
But the journey feels too good already
Not to finish.
I have all my life to learn
More
Different ways
to love me.

Broken Up Sunlight

In the era of my second decade,
Entering my most confusing time yet.
Who to be, where to go,
What to do,
Who knows?
I slithered around in fear
Most of 2023.
I crave new skin, I crave brighter days.
I long to give my thoughts action
Instead of letting them
Prance around, dressed in “what ifs”.
Chills strike my body at the thought
Of my life being my own.
My palate has become stale
From being stagnant,
Yet I’m afraid of the sours of change.
My feet don’t know what direction
To step in but
It’s become exhausting
Stepping in fear.
I want this letter, this poem,
To be my step forward.
Still a step in fear
But a step forward.
Refreshed, I am in my era of exposure.
I am in my era of doing.
No longer sitting and wallowing
in anxiety,
Standing up when I feel disrespected.
There is so much more to see, to experience,
to do, to be.
I’ve grown tired of being the reason
of my own downfall.
Tired of shading
my vision and tainting
My talents,
In fear.
I crave confidence,
I crave a self I’ve never known.
I crave new skin, I crave brighter days.