By Design, a Poem

Before I learned what to call myself,

something in me already knew how to be.

Not taught. Not practiced.

Just... there.

A way of feeling that ran deeper than

language.

A way of knowing that didn't need

permission to exist.

I didn't understand it then- only that it didn't

always fit what was asked of me.

So I learned how to adjust.

Not because I was lost, but because I was

paying attention.

Still... something in me remained untouched.

Something that didn't bend all the way.

Something that felt... intentional.

I have always understood water.

The way it holds and releases at the same time.

The way it carries without asking to be seen.

The way it moves... around, through, despite-

never asking permission to be as it is.

There is something in me that answers when it does.

Not perfectly. Not without hesitation.

But honestly.

I have felt it in the quiet ways I return to myself.

In the way I soften without disappearing.

In the way I let things go that once felt they would break me to release.

In the way I begin again... not loudly, but completely.

There is a rhythm to that.

Not random.

Not fragile.

Just true.

And then there is the part of me

that refuses to be contained.

Not angry... just unwilling.

The part that doesn't perform well.

The part that doesn't filter itself into something easier to hold.

The part that knows when something isn't right- even when it looks acceptable.

I used to think that part of me needed discipline.

Now I think it just

needed space.

Because the wild does not grow wrong...

it grows as it was meant to.

Crooked. Reaching. Unapologetic in its direction.

And maybe that's what I've been feeling all along-

not too much...just uncontained on purpose.

I carry more than what I've lived.

There is memory in me that didn't begin with me.

In the way something in me refuses to disappear completely.

Water remembers.

The wild remembers.

And I think I do too.

Not always in words, but in the knowing.

In the quiet certainty that nothing about the way I am

is accidental.

There is something sacred about living like water and wild things at once.

To move with hardening.

To soften without surrendering yourself.

To outgrow every container that mistakes your depth for danger.

Not reckless. Not untamed in the way they warned.

Just true enough to follow what was placed within in you.

I think I'm ready to live like that.

To stop holding myself in places I've already outgrown.

To trust that what moves in me has a rhythm I don't need to control.

I am not too much.

I am in motion.

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About Shawana Peters (PoeticBlossom23)

Shawana Peters is a writer, poet, and creative storyteller whose work explores softness, identity, womanhood, healing, and the emotional depth of becoming. Through reflective prose and poetic language, she creates pieces that sit honestly with the parts of ourselves often hidden beneath expectation, survival, and performance. Rooted in intuition, faith, and lived experience as a Black woman, her writing invites readers to return to themselves with honesty, tenderness, and power.