Kate Smith ’28
Before I am gone, tell them that
I was never simple.
That I lived in contradictions
and learned to breathe there.
Tell them I noticed things early—
how light leaves before it disappears,
how people love in fragments,
how joy and grief can share the same sentence.
Tell them I learned suffering is not what shapes you,
but what you choose to do with it.
That I believed growth was an act of defiance,
and softness was never weakness.
Tell them I carried childhood like a relic—
golden, cracked, still holy.
That I understood how the roots of your hair change color,
how becoming costs you something
you didn’t agree to give up.
Tell them I was drawn to paradox:
happiness that runs,
silence that speaks,
darkness that teaches you where the stars are.
That I asked questions most people avoid
because the answers rearrange you.
Tell them I wrote because it was the only place
I could be fully honest.
That every word was a fingerprint,
every metaphor a confession,
every poem a way of saying
this is who I am when no one is watching.
Tell them there are parts of me
no one will ever fully understand—
not because I hid them,
but because they can only be found
by those willing to look inward themselves.
And before I am gone, tell them this:
I wanted to be known,
not admired, not simplified,
but seen—
in all my depth, my doubt, my becoming.
Tell them I was here
thinking deeply, feeling fiercely,
turning life over and over in my hands
until it meant something.
And if they don’t understand me,
tell them it wasn’t because I was unreadable—
it was because I was written
in a language few ever learn.