Assumptions Are Not Inheritance Poem by cassidy Lovato

If I am gone,
do not borrow my name
to finish your sentences.

Do not say 'she would have wanted'
as if you carried my thoughts
in your pocket,
as if you knew the way my mind
changed its shape with time.

Do not press my voice
into your version of right.
Do not guide others
with assumptions dressed as devotion.

I am not your compass.
I am not your permission slip.

If I am gone,
do not tell my children
who I hoped they'd become,
what they should believe,
who they must love,
or how closely their lives
should resemble the echo of mine.

You never saw every crossroad.
You never heard every hesitation.
You never knew what I unlearned,
or what I forgave in silence.

Growth is not loyal to prediction.
Healing does not ask for witnesses.

If I am gone,
do not act in my name.
Act in your own.

Live in the breath you still have,
the choice that is still yours,
the now that refuses to be postponed
for what you imagine I'd say.

You do not know my intent.
You do not know my final understanding.
You do not know who I was becoming.

I did.
And that is enough.