Translation

I Get It Now

I thought there was a mold
I had to fit in.

I didn't fit.
I was too large,
Too extra.

So to fit,
I broke off pieces of myself
And threw them away.

I still didn't fit,
But I was closer.
I was inside the mold instead of out,
And I was safer.
I was happy.

Was I happy?

No.

I realized,
I had built the mold.
I had told myself what
I had to be
To be loved.

The mold was built
Off observations of
Who I wanted to be with
And who people liked.

That was who I wanted to be, right?

Someone people liked
And wanted to be around.

But the mold was built
Before my conclusion
That people like unique.

And I had just thrown away
"Unique,"
Because it didn't fit the mold.

I had broken off the best parts
Of myself
And thrown them to the wind,
Never to be seen again.

I fear I am no starfish.
No planarian.
I fear I can't regenerate
And be myself again.

I fear I can't be me
Ever
Again.

I don't even know who that is.

And I don't know how to get them back.

January Nineteenth, 2018; this poem was first written. I had lost myself. I had literally lost myself, and I was frightened. I lost her. I silenced her, locked her lips and threw away the key. And it was months until I found it again.

It was an awful, real experience.

This poem was not exaggerated.

It sounds it. It frustrates me how it sounds so fake, so dramatic, so exaggerated, but yet I can still feel the fear inside me. I can still remember how frightened I was that I would never be an individual again.

But I found her, eventually, and I like to think I'm me again. But never, ever, would I want anyone else to go through that, even though I hear we all do.

So please listen to my words, and don't make a mold for yourself. Don't use anybody else's, either. You're perfect the way you are, you're who you're meant to be.

Please stay that way.