My Raw Unscripted Life

It wasn’t a flaw, it was a map
A way to navigate a house of stone and pride.
The youngest, the only, the girl who felt too much,
In a room where “enough” was a place to hide.

To be a Culpepper was to be composed,
To match the rhythm of the brothers’ stride.
So you traded your color for a softer shade,
And tucked the “extra” parts away inside.

“Willistene…” a gentle warning,
A fence around the garden of your heart.
You learned that membership has a cost:
To stay at the table, you must play the part.

But romantic air breathes life into old ghosts;
The same circuitry begins to hum and glow.
Can I be seen without being corrected?
Can I be full without being told to go?

The breakthrough is a quiet, steady truth:
The shrinking wasn’t you, it was a cage.
You are not “too much”, you are simply here,
Writing a sovereign and visible page.

You don’t have to be “one of them” to belong.
You don’t have to fade to keep the light.
Real love doesn’t ask you to disappear;
It asks you to stand in the center of your might.

The girl has been found.
The woman is intact.
The seat at the table is yours
And that is a beautiful, unbreakable fact.