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In his new memoir, “I am Maria: My reflections and poems on heart break, treatment, and finding your way on poems” (Published by Open Field on 1 April), Maria Shriver – Kennadees’ daughter, broadcast journalist, and former California’s first woman – uses poetry to find a woman in search of herself.
Read some selected poems below, and Do not remember Lee Kovan’s interview with Maria Shriver on “CBS Sunday Morning” on 30 March!
“I am Maria” by Maria Shriver
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I know you loved me
Beyond a shadow
beyond words
Beyond the picture of a loving mother
Looks like
Acting like
Talk
touch
You are
I found no one like you in my photo books
No mother looked like
Wear pants like you
You had hair like you
Played football like you
Cigar smoked like you
Still I knew that you loved me
I knew that you wanted more for me as much as you were
I knew that you wanted everything for me that you were denied
Beyond a shadow I know you loved me
The way you smiled seeing me and became happy for me
The way you pushed me
I know you loved me
Do you know how much I loved you
Beyond a shadow you were my everything
I understand a lot about you today
You were also scared
You are also craving to be seen
You are also craving to be held
My heart breaks for you
As I have come to learn that we cannot give what we were not given
As you grew up
You let me go in
My heart broke for my mother
But no one lets him go inside
But nobody kept it
Nobody gave him comfort
Nobody told her that she was enough
His journey was tireless
His energy became unbridled
I understand now and i am very sorry
Beyond a shadow I know you loved me
I loved you beyond a shadow
Dear life
I want to tell you recently to tell you
You are not what I have planned
You can’t give a curse, but I thought you should know
You are not what I expected
I thought until I used to point to my compass north
All will be good
But I came to know that my heart doesn’t know the answer
My life has taken me to the path written in invisible ink
I didn’t know yet to yearn for more than a soul
So here we are life
Without compass without map
Only my heart is guiding me further
It surprises
Am I ready to be known in a new and deep way?
What I am quite strong to open my heart and what lies
Inside?
Life you say what are you all about
Let’s see how the universe reacts
When I pull the curtain back on my soul
pieces of Me
They are everywhere
pieces of Me
Looking down in the closet in the drawer in the roof
My pieces are all on the ground
They are in Chicago
In Maryland
In my school hall
in my bedroom
Where i broke into two
How are you
Are you shattered?
Are you fragmented
Even in pieces
Is your life here on earth
Heaven
Do you vaccinate?
Between power and impotence
Don’t want anything or want it all
Do you stare at yourself different from life
When you close your eyes, you pray for relief from the knife
Tell me tell me
Are you a coward hero who is a player of the heart
Do you know who you are or you have disappeared from your life
Stand up shows stop hiding yourself here and there
Pick up the pieces
They are everywhere
It’s a mess it’s a hut
You are here and you are there
Do you not see
Don’t you care that you are everywhere
It depends on you
To add your life together
You understand
To go back to you
Back where it started
Go back to your birth
If you can go back
Go back to henis
Go back to your room
Go back
Tell him that you know and don’t feel ashamed anymore
Tell him that you love her and pray for her pain
Go back pick up the pieces
Complete yourself
Go back to laminate
They are the key to your soul
Part from “I am Maria” by Maria Shriver, published by Open Field, a impression of Penguin Life, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Maria Shriver. All rights reserved. Any part of this fraction cannot be reprinted or reprinted without permission from the publisher.
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“I am Maria” by Maria Shriver
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