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In her new memoir, “I Am Maria: My Reflections and Poems on Heartbreak, Healing, and Finding Your Way Home” (to be published April 1 by The Open Field), Maria Shriver – the daughter of Kennedys, broadcast journalist, and former first lady of California – uses poetry to explore a woman in search of herself.

Read some selected poems below, and don’t miss Lee Cowan’s interview with Maria Shriver on “CBS Sunday Morning” March 30!

“I Am Maria” by Maria Shriver

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I Know You Loved Me

Beyond a shadow
Beyond the words
Beyond the picture of what a loving nurturing mother
Is supposed to look like
Act like
Talk like
Touch like
There is you
I couldn’t find anyone like you in my picture books
No mothers looked like you
Dressed in pants like you
Had hair like you
Played football like you
Smoked cigars like you
Yet I knew you loved me
I knew you wanted more for me than you had been given
I knew you wanted for me everything you had been denied
Beyond a shadow I know you loved me
The way you smiled at me and cheered 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 so much more about you today
You too were scared
You too longed to be seen
You too longed to be held
My heart breaks for you
As I’ve come to learn we cannot give what wasn’t given to us
As you grew older you softened
You allowed me in
My heart breaks for my mother
But no one let her in
But no one held her
No one comforted her
No one told her she was enough
Her journey was relentless
Her energy unbridled
I understand now and I’m so sorry
Beyond a shadow I know you loved me
Beyond a shadow I loved you

Dear Life

I’ve been wanting to talk to you lately to tell you
You are not what I planned
You may not give a damn but I thought you should know
You are not what I expected
I thought as long as I had my compass pointing north
All would be good
But I learned that my heart doesn’t know north
My life has led me on a path written in invisible ink
Longing for more from a soul I didn’t know yet
So here we are Life
Without a compass without a map
Only my heart guiding me forward
It wonders
Am I ready to be known in a new and deep way?
Am I strong enough to open my heart and divulge what lies
within?
Life you say that’s what you are all about
Let’s see how the universe responds
When I pull back the curtain on my soul

Fragments of Me

They are everywhere
The fragments of me
In the closet in the drawer in the ceiling looking down
The fragments of me are all over the land
They are in Chicago
In Maryland
In the hall at my school
In my bedroom
Where I broke into two
What about you
Are you shattered
Are you fragmented
In pieces as well
Is your life here on earth
A heaven or hell
Do you vacillate
Between power and impotence
Wanting nothing or wanting it all
Do you stare down on yourself dissociated from life
When you close your eyes do you pray for the relief of a knife
Tell me tell me
Are you the coward the hero a player of hearts
Do you know who you are or have you vanished from your life
Stand up show yourself stop hiding here and there
Go pick up the pieces
They’re everywhere
It’s a mess it’s a shambles
You are here and you are there
Don’t you see
Don’t you care that you’re everywhere
It’s up to you
Up to you to piece together your life
Up to you to make sense
Up to you to go back
Back to where it began
Go back to your birth
Go back if you can
Go back to Hyannis
Go back to your room
Go back
Tell him you know and no longer feel shame
Tell her you love her and pray for her pain
Go back pick up the pieces
Make yourself whole
Go back to the fragments
They’re the key to your soul

      
Excerpted from “I Am Maria” by Maria Shriver, published by The Open Field, an imprint of Penguin Life, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2025 by Maria Shriver. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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“I Am Maria” by Maria Shriver

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