Hira Fatima Poet Free verse

My Shadow Has Been Learning My Handwriting

I found the first letter under my pillow, 
in ink I recognized before I recognized the words 
my own hand, but steadier. 
Braver, somehow, in the loops of the y.

Dear diary, it began, in my handwriting, 
though I keep no diary that anyone else could find. 
It knew things I'd only thought at 2a.m. 
It knew the name I never say out loud. 

I caught it once, in the lamp-light,
bent over my desk in the shape of me,
holding a pen the way I hold a pen,
writing something I would never have the nerve to send.

I didn't stop it.
I think some part of me left the desk lamp on
on purpose, that night
some part of me that wanted to be spoken for.

It signs my name better than I do now.
No hesitation in the final stroke.
No crossing out. No starting over.
Just my name, sent, sealed, and meant. 

Last week I found the final letter,
already folded, already addressed
to the one person I never worked up the courage to tell.
At the bottom, in handwriting identical to mine, it said:

I am you, but the part of you that stopped waiting.
I hope you don't mind. I already dropped it in the mailbox.
By the time you read this,
it will already be theirs.

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