There is a battle
between who I am
and who you think I am.
My identity lives
in the rooms no one enters—
in my silences,
my scars,
the truths I carry
without explanation.
Perception lives
in the eyes of others.
It needs no truth.
Only a moment,
a misunderstanding,
a story told without me.
And sometimes
I find myself fighting
to correct a version of me
that was never mine.
That is the exhaustion—
being known
without being understood.
So which matters more?
Who I am,
or who I am perceived to be?
Perhaps identity is the truth,
while perception is only its shadow.
But shadows can be cruel.
They can follow you
long after the light has changed.
And perhaps growing older
is learning to stop chasing them—
to stand quietly
inside your own truth,
even when the world
chooses to see you differently.
