I wanted to be everything,
the kind you dream of
when the streetlights hum,
and your head is full of quiet promises
only night makes you brave enough to keep.
I wanted to be fire
clean-burning, bright, and endless.
The kind that people don't walk away from,
the kind that makes them stay
just to see if they can bear the heat.
I wanted to be the calm too,
someone's silent harbor,
a place soft enough to rest
and close enough to feel like home.
I swore, if I could be anything,
I'd be what I needed once—
and what I thought I'd never find.
But what they never tell you
is that becoming takes a toll.
All that forging, that furnace,
that chiseling away at the edges of who you were
until what's left is barely yours at all.
I thought I was building a life,
but all I built were walls.
I thought I was lighting a path,
but all I did was cast shadows.
And maybe I was never the one—
to be unbreakable, to be enough,
to hold so much of someone else's world
without losing mine.
So here I am,
standing in the ruins of everything I tried to be,
ashes of the person I sought,
dust settling on a name I can barely recognize.
Maybe, after all,
the only way to find yourself
is to undo all the dreams that made you lose your way.
