I am

I am a mother,

I am a wife,

I am a friend,

I am a woman.

I rise before the sun remembers its own name,

tie shoelaces, braid hair,

pour coffee into the quiet spaces of morning.

My hands are maps of small kindnesses,

my voice a bridge between storms.

I love my children with a love that has no edges.

I love my husband with the patience of seasons.

I love my parents with the soft ache of gratitude.

I go out shopping for bread and birthdays.

I go out swimming where the water forgives my weight.

I go out traveling, collecting horizons

like postcards folded into my chest.

I was born once—

a single door opening into light.

I will live once—

each breath a coin spent without return.

I will die once—

a final exhale given back to the air.

The goat does not belong to anyone.

I do not explain it.

It stands there, stubborn and ordinary,

chewing at the edge of my sentences.

When I am gone,

my laughter will remain in the curtains,

my fingerprints in the flour tin,

my footsteps in the hallway at night.

I will live again

in memories told at kitchen tables,

in the bright noon of stories retold,

in photographs touched by careful hands.

Love does not vanish—

it changes rooms.

I am a mother.

I am a wife.

I am a friend.

I am a woman.

I was born once.

I will die once.

But in the echo of those who speak my name,

I will survive.