I wanted to build
something that knew my name.
Not the name
on an application.
Not the name
beneath a rejection.
Mine.

So I gave an idea
Flora and Essence
At first,
it was almost nothing.
A thought.
A mood board.
A list of possibilities
written beside
things I could not yet afford.

I imagined fragrance
leaving a room
before the person did.
Beautiful packaging.
Orders.
Customers
finding something
that felt like them.

Then the numbers arrived.
Numbers have a way
of making dreams
sit up straight.
Stock.
Packaging.
Delivery.
Marketing.
Registration.
Money leaving
before money returned.

I discovered
that loving an idea
and building a business
are not the same thing.
One requires imagination.
The other requires
imagination
with receipts.

There were days
I looked at the dream
and wondered
whether I had mistaken
desire for readiness.
But perhaps readiness
is not a feeling.
Perhaps it is a decision
made repeatedly
in the presence
of uncertainty.

And there is something
beautiful about that.
Because the business
does not only represent
what I hope to sell.
It represents
the woman I am becoming
while trying to build it.
Someone willing
to start small.
To learn.
To fail without disappearing.
To dream
without pretending
the numbers do not matter.

One day,
perhaps,
someone will hold
a bottle in their hand
with my name on it.
They may never know
how many uncertain nights
were inside that bottle.
I will

Editor’s note: This poem later became part of the collection “Nothing About Me Was Wasted”.