Let me rip a page straight from the soul of an artichoke—
You see, my heart has too many layers to have limits.

Tough in places, tender in others.
Not everyone gets to the center.

Now, let me—ever so gently, just enough to keep my artichoke leaves intact—
share the pages that struck chords deep within the drawing room of my heart.

There was the one who taught me to see with my soul and speak with my fingers.
Who made me realize that silence isn’t absence and blindness isn’t darkness.
A world carved from discipline and devotion,
yet it bloomed like a spring garden in full color.

Or the one I met before I knew how cruel the world can be—
with the tenderness of a friend whispering from an attic.
She taught me that even in hiding,
light can leak through the cracks.
That hope has ink.
That a teenage girl’s voice can be louder than a dictator’s rage.

Then there’s the one who didn’t clean up her questions before asking them.
Nope—she didn’t tidy her thoughts for polite society.
She spilled them—awkwardly, hilariously—across every page.
She made it okay to be unsure.
To change your mind.
To cry, to laugh, to fumble.
She made space for me:
awkward, insistent, and unashamedly alive.