No one tells you
that to grow
is to lose parts of yourself
you once protected like sacred ground.

Becoming is not a bloom.
It is an unraveling.
A quiet dismantling
of the person you thought you had to be.

You shed illusions
like old skin,
some clinging longer than others,
some tearing as they go.

There is grief in it-
not always loud,
but constant.
You mourn the comfort of what was,
even when it no longer fits.

People speak of evolution
as if it is glorious,
as if the fire does not burn
before it purifies.

But change is not a sunrise.
It is a storm
that hollows out the familiar
so something nameless
can take its place.

You walk forward,
not with certainty,
but with surrender.
Each step costs you
a version of yourself
you once believed was the only one.

And still,
you move.
Because standing still
is forgetting you were ever meant
to become.