Margaret Doty Poet Free verse

Finding me in a name, Matilda Peg

I thought I was creating a character. 
A name
A history
A voice
A body that could walk onto a stage and become someone else.

But somewhere between the lines, the pauses, the silence, and the moments when Matilda Peg looked back at me. And I realized she was asking questions I had spent years avoiding.

How did you survive that?
I don't know.

How did you keep going when you didn't know where you were going?
I don't know.

Why didn't you leave sooner?
I don't know.

Why didn't you stand up for yourself?
I don't know.

And then another question: why did you make such a big deal about it? (That one hurt.)

Because sometimes the things that hurt us don't look big from the outside.
Sometimes we convince ourselves that it wasn't that bad.
That someone else had it worse.
That we should have been stronger.
That we should have spoken sooner.
That we should have walked away.

But Matilda doesn't let me hide behind those answers.
She stands there, waiting, asking. 

Why did you stay?
Because I was surviving.

Why didn't you fight?
Because sometimes surviving doesn't look like fighting.

Sometimes it looks like becoming quiet.
Sometimes it looks like making excuses.
Sometimes it looks like pretending everything is fine because pretending is easier than admitting that it isn't.

So, when did you become strong?
Maybe I didn't.
Maybe I became strong slowly.

A little every time I got back up.
A little every time I tried again.
A little every time I stepped onto a stage and allowed myself to be seen.

Maybe that is what acting has given me.
Not an escape from myself, but a way back to myself.

I create characters, and somehow, they create me.

I give Matilda Peg a voice, and she gives me questions.
Questions I don't always want to answer.
Questions about the little girl I was.
The woman I became. The things I accepted.
The moments I wish I had been braver. 
The moments I realize I was braver than I ever gave myself credit for.

Maybe I am not finding out who I am by becoming Matilda Peg.
Maybe I am finding out who I am; because Matilda Peg keeps asking me who I have always been.
And maybe someday I won't need her to ask anymore.
Maybe I will already know.

I am the girl who survived.
I am the voice that was once quiet.
I am the person who gets to decide what happens in the next scene.
And when I step onto the stage now, Matilda Peg isn't someone else.
She is a mirror. 
And for the first time, I am not afraid of what I see

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