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The short poem turns overheard identity into a statement about what someone already was.

Its force is in compression: hearing, being, and always having been are nearly the whole poem. The odd final werec leaves the assertion slightly unsettled rather than fully declarative.

Headed 'Something I heard,' the two lines fold time into identity: 'What you are / You always werec.' The stray 'c' aside, the claim denies development - the present self was always already present.