To Love Poem by Cecilia Parkin

I know myself and who and what I am.
Shaped and fashioned at birth - by those before,
And after, as life's encounters and experiences were
- Before you.

And now you profess your love
And yet hesitate,
As it some part of what I am
You would remake.

Do not want to change me, for changes sake,
Or to remind you of an earlier someone
From halcyn days that did not last.
I do not want to be an echo from your past!
I am myself - so love me for that.