‘The Woman I Was Before the Waiting’

Pia Quintano is a New York based writer/painter. Her artwork has recently appeared in Red Ogre, Emerson Review, Harpur Palate, Glass Mountain and Peatsmoke amoug other journals.

The Woman I Was Before the Waiting

She used to run
barefoot into the ocean,
never checking the tide,
never counting.

She wore red
without wondering if it meant
something had started,
or ended.

She laughed like she didn’t know
what hope could cost.
A whole girl—
unmeasured.

Then came
the waiting rooms,
the whispers,
the quiet mourning of what never arrived.

And now?
Now she folds her grief
into laundry.
Lights candles
without wishing for anything.
Watches sunrises
and lets them be just light.

She still lives here.
In the mirror.
In the tea-stained mug.
In the music that plays
when no one else is home.

She’s different.
But not gone.
Just changed.

And still worthy.

Melba writes from the quiet places where grief and identity meet. Her work explores infertility, longing, and selfhood through raw, nature-infused poetry. She is the author of Unplanted Yet Flourishing and the creator of Poetic Nectar Collective.