I Hope My Voice Is Loud Enough

I spent a lifetime swallowing my words

Never telling where it hurt

Trying to be the smallest person in the room

Wearing my trauma like perfume 

Whenever I try to speak, something smothers my voice

Shoves it down a rickety staircase 

Never to be heard again

I become an echo of an echo

The shadow of a shadow 

To be a ghost, you need to have lived once

I haven't even begun... 

I hope my voice is loud enough 

To break out of its confines 

and finally fly. 

I hope it is strong enough to carry me.