Once a Street Girl

Once a Street Girl

I learned early how to walk without looking back,

How to keep my hands steady and my heart closed tight,

The street raised me with no softness to spare,

Only lessons you carry through the night.

Love was something I watched from a distance,

A story told for people not like me,

I wore my independence like armour and pride,

Never asking what it cost me to be free.

Men came and went like passing weather,

None of them stayed long enough to see,

The parts of me that still ached for shelter,

The girl I never allowed myself to be.

I laughed at the thought of becoming a wife,

Of folding into a life that felt too small,

I said I belonged to no one at all,

Yet belonging was something I craved most of all.

Time does not wait for you to decide,

It moves forward without asking your name,

And somewhere along that restless road,

I realised I was still standing the same.

Once a street girl, always untethered,

That is the truth I tried not to face,

Not every life bends into something softer,

Some hearts never quite find their place.

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