Samantha Nagott's "Who Am I" is a speaker's struggle to find a sense of self and a place to belong. She feels like "a mess," and the poem keeps returning to that word. The images of a seed that can't sprout without water and warmth, and of being "an outside daughter," suggest she feels unnourished and left out, perhaps within her own family. The mirror shows cracks, and her past is no help, since she can't see who she used to be in it. She even paints over what she has loved and lacked in black.
The mood is tired, lonely and raw. She wants to be "a person" and "a face in the crowd," not an "empty void" that people avoid. Still, a small hope slips in. She says "no one and nothing can conquer" her, but "someone can," which hints that she might need another person's care to feel real. Raising the "white flag" feels like exhaustion rather than a final surrender.