You make me want to be a better woman—

not grander,
nor more admired,

but more wholly myself.

A woman no longer at war
with her own reflection.
One who wears her years
as the oak wears its rings—
not as evidence of loss,
but of becoming.

You make me want to unlearn
the careful shrinking
that life mistakes for wisdom.

To inhabit my own skin
the way sunlight inhabits a window—
without apology.

To trust the softness
that survives disappointment,
the strength
that asks for no witness.

You make me want
to loosen the old knots of sorrow,
to open the locked rooms,

and let the forgotten music
find its way back
into the house of my heart.