Time flies.
Dreams are won, or they are quietly forgotten,
this is how the universe keeps its balance.
Somewhere between running for success,
or maybe just running to survive,
I left myself behind.
Now who am I?
Even I no longer know.
Freedom was never what I asked for.
I wanted a cage,
my beautiful cage,
where life begins in warmth
and ends in warmth.
I wanted to fight, to talk too much, to be loud, to be free,
that was the life I dreamed of.
Of course, success was part of it.
I wanted to fly without limits,
higher than everyone else
but always return at dusk
to the place that felt like home.
Now I stand in a place
where I can’t tell
which part of the dream I reached.
Am I successful? I don’t know.
But I know I am no longer myself.
I won’t say I’ve become someone else
yet I am someone
my younger self would pass by without recognizing.
I won’t say I am in pain, or broken,
but I am not as happy
as I once promised I would be.
I won’t say my life is bad
but it no longer feels like it belongs to me.
I think this is what growing up is.
A place where no one ever sees you sad,
and you never let yourself be happy without a reason.
Because happiness needs a reason, right?
…Right?
My younger self would have laughed at that.
I miss my cage.
I miss its warmth.
I miss the version of me who lived there,
the one who could still fly
even inside something so small.
Now I am someone
who doesn’t want to fly
even in an open sky.
It’s too tiring, isn’t it?
And still, I will say this to me:
I love you.
You are doing your best.
One day, your life will find you again.
One day, you will be who you were,
only softer,
only stronger,
only a little more.
You will get there.
