Statement of Perspective

I wrote this poem because corners have always felt like checkpoints on a map I keep drawing of myself. I’m a young woman who has moved through schools, bedrooms, friend groups, and cities like someone trying on mirrors. Seeing a version of me and then slipping away before it sticks. Belonging, for me, isn’t a crowd cheering; it’s the quiet moment when a room stops asking me to shrink. I used to think “home” was a single address or the approval of the loudest person, but it turns out it’s smaller and sturdier: two lines meeting and deciding not to run. I’m still learning to lean into those angles: the clubs where I don’t have to translate, the friends who don’t keep score, the work that holds my outline without smudging it. Corners are how I measure progress now: every time I set down my bag and the walls remember me, I’m one degree closer to belonging.