Light Filters In: Poems

by Caroline Kaufman

there is nothing more powerful than a girl with a pen who is brave enough to use it.

I’ve spent so much time trying to become who I should be that I lost myself along the way.

I am crowded in an empty room. I guess it’s the silence, the emptiness, the nothingness. it pushes on me. it tells me you take up too much space. I reply, I know.

someone once asked me what I would do if finding happiness made me unable to write anymore. and the answer is simple: I would gladly never pick up another pen.

I am the antagonistic protagonist of my own story.

sacrifice is not as glamorous as it’s made out to be.

I am an incomplete masterpiece, full of crossed-out words and changes. no one ever calls the first draft beautiful, and I will never be the final piece.

so, yes. maybe I am writing the same thing over and over and over. but I have no choice. how else am I supposed to find myself?

the problem was not asking him to complete me. the problem was believing I was incomplete to begin with.

be grateful that time will heal the wounds but leave the scars. how else will you remember all that you’ve survived?

don’t ask for respect; demand it. don’t look for opportunity; grab it. don’t add to the world; change it.