My First Public Poetry Reading

A few years ago, I would have thought the significance of this evening was finding the courage to read my poetry in public.

Looking back, the reading wasn't about courage.

It was about recognizing who I had become.

For most of my life, I experienced myself and the world through the filter of abuse. Whether I realized it or not, my past shaped how I understood my life, my relationships, and even my identity.

Healing gradually helped me distinguish the past from the present, hold difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed by them, and loosen trauma's grip on my life.

As I prepared for the reading, I revisited the poems I had written over the previous years. Each one captured a moment along the way. Together, they told the story of the life I had lived but hadn't fully appreciated.

What surprised me wasn't the poems. It was what they revealed about the person who had written them. Until then, I had seen myself through the eyes of someone silenced by shame and fear of judgment. Now I saw someone who had endured, questioned, learned, adapted, and continued to move forward despite everything.

While organizing the reading, I found myself writing four words:

Person. Poet. Survivor. Monk.

My eyes immediately returned to the first word.

Person.

It stopped me.

In that moment, I understood something I had never seen before. I wasn't a survivor or a monk first. I was a person.

The order mattered.

Person asked nothing of me. I realized I had the right to be here, to occupy space, and to exist—not because of what I had survived or what I had done, but simply because I am a human being.

For years, my past had been the lens through which I understood my present. Now, my present had become the lens through which I understood my past. The abuse had found its rightful place. It was no longer the whole picture.

Looking back, I found myself saying something I had never been able to say before: "You have done well." Overwhelmed by compassion for myself, I could appreciate the journey that had shaped me and the person I had become.

As the evening approached, I made one conscious decision: to show up as myself and speak my truth. I wasn't trying to prove anything. I wasn't seeking validation. I was simply sharing my poetry.

The following morning, I woke with a quiet sense of accomplishment unlike anything I had experienced before. I realized I could live authentically, simply being myself.

Watch the poetry reading on YouTube