My First Valentine

There once was a woman,

Ingenious, witty, a true pearl,

With curiosity set into her brows, arched above her eyes laser-focused

On her dreams across seas,

For someone she had never met.

She poured through book after book,

taught herself to get here

Not knowing she was a volunteer

In a machine

where value lies in the stability of a career.

She put it on pause, aware she may never press play again

Nor get to hear her sounds bless the airwaves,

For someone she had never met.

A social butterfly windswept eons away,

A monarch leaving her kingdom of culture, of kinship, of worshipping

Her.

Migrating all the way over to second class citizen,

For someone she had never met.

Spent nine months of delicate caring,

Carrying herself with the weight of a lifetime

Mere inches below her heart.

And as she cried through the pain

the world opened in her eyes and heaven was placed below her feet,

For someone she had never met.

That someone was me.

By Maryam Khalid, Class of 2023