I was born into a role, not a moment—
crowned eldest before I learned how to be small,
before I knew how to need anything,
before I knew I was allowed to fall.
They placed invisible hands on my shoulders,
called it “maturity,” called it “grace,”
but it felt like learning how to disappear
while keeping a smile stitched onto my face.
I became fluent in tension—
in the language of footsteps down the hall,
in the pitch of a voice just before it breaks,
in the silence that follows it all.
I learned how to read rooms before books,
how to steady the air when it shifted wrong,
how to carry the weight of everyone’s world
and convince myself I was strong.
Strong meant quiet.
Strong meant bending.
Strong meant never asking why.
Strong meant holding everyone together
while something in me learned to die.
And no one writes songs for girls like me—
the ones who became before they began,
who stitched themselves into safety nets
and called it “just part of the plan.”
There are ghosts in the way I love people,
in how quickly I give, how slowly I trust,
in how I brace for abandonment
even when someone swears they won’t leave me to dust.
There are tremors beneath my “I’m okay,”
fault lines hidden under skin,
a war that never got a closing chapter,
just a quiet place to live within.
They say I’m resilient like it’s holy,
like survival is something to praise,
but they never saw the nights I unraveled,
or the fog of those endless days.
They never saw me mourn a childhood
I can’t quite name but know I missed,
never saw the girl who needed saving
learn to survive by clenching her fists.
And they say pressure makes diamonds,
so why am I still coal?
Why do I carry all this weight
and still feel split down to my soul?
Why does healing feel like breaking
open wounds I tried to seal?
Why does safety feel so foreign
when it’s all I’ve begged to feel?
I’ve been buried under expectation,
under “be the first,” under “make us proud,”
first to dream beyond the limits,
first to say the quiet parts out loud.
First to chase a different future,
first to carve a brand new name,
first to carry generations forward
while still learning how to hold my pain.
I am the bridge and the breaking,
the proof and the cost of the climb,
a lineage shifting inside of me
one boundary at a time.
And some days I hate the calling—
hate how heavy it can be,
hate that I am still becoming
someone I’ve never gotten to see.
Because I don’t know how to hold this future
without grieving everything behind,
don’t know how to rest in the present
with a past that rewired my mind.
I don’t know how to be soft without fear,
how to be loved without bracing the fall,
don’t know how to believe I am worthy
without proving it first to them all.
But I am learning—
slowly, painfully, honestly learning—
that strength is not the absence of ache,
that survival is not the same as living,
that there is still so much of me to wake.
I am learning that I can set boundaries
without setting myself on fire,
that I can be both healing and hurting,
both exhausted and still full of desire.
That the girl who held everyone together
deserved someone to hold her too,
that the love I poured into others
was always meant to reach me through.
Maybe I am not unfinished—
maybe I am unfolding instead,
every broken piece a doorway,
every tear a word unsaid.
Maybe I was never meant
to become something polished and cold,
never meant to be a diamond—
because diamonds don’t feel,
don’t fracture, don’t fight to stay whole.
Maybe I was meant to be fire-born,
to carry both shadow and soul,
to be something softer, something burning—
because even coal remembers the sun,
even coal holds heat in its core,
even coal, when given the right kind of love,
can become so much more.
Apr 10
Apr 10, 2026 at 9:53 PM UTC
I was born into a role, not a moment—
crowned eldest before I learned how to be small,
before I knew how to need anything,
before I knew I was allowed to fall.
They placed invisible hands on my shoulders,
called it “maturity,” called it “grace,”
but it felt like learning how to disappear
while keeping a smile stitched onto my face.
I became fluent in tension—
in the language of footsteps down the hall,
in the pitch of a voice just before it breaks,
in the silence that follows it all.
I learned how to read rooms before books,
how to steady the air when it shifted wrong,
how to carry the weight of everyone’s world
and convince myself I was strong.
Strong meant quiet.
Strong meant bending.
Strong meant never asking why.
Strong meant holding everyone together
while something in me learned to die.
And no one writes songs for girls like me—
the ones who became before they began,
who stitched themselves into safety nets
and called it “just part of the plan.”
There are ghosts in the way I love people,
in how quickly I give, how slowly I trust,
in how I brace for abandonment
even when someone swears they won’t leave me to dust.
There are tremors beneath my “I’m okay,”
fault lines hidden under skin,
a war that never got a closing chapter,
just a quiet place to live within.
They say I’m resilient like it’s holy,
like survival is something to praise,
but they never saw the nights I unraveled,
or the fog of those endless days.
They never saw me mourn a childhood
I can’t quite name but know I missed,
never saw the girl who needed saving
learn to survive by clenching her fists.
And they say pressure makes diamonds,
so why am I still coal?
Why do I carry all this weight
and still feel split down to my soul?
Why does healing feel like breaking
open wounds I tried to seal?
Why does safety feel so foreign
when it’s all I’ve begged to feel?
I’ve been buried under expectation,
under “be the first,” under “make us proud,”
first to dream beyond the limits,
first to say the quiet parts out loud.
First to chase a different future,
first to carve a brand new name,
first to carry generations forward
while still learning how to hold my pain.
I am the bridge and the breaking,
the proof and the cost of the climb,
a lineage shifting inside of me
one boundary at a time.
And some days I hate the calling—
hate how heavy it can be,
hate that I am still becoming
someone I’ve never gotten to see.
Because I don’t know how to hold this future
without grieving everything behind,
don’t know how to rest in the present
with a past that rewired my mind.
I don’t know how to be soft without fear,
how to be loved without bracing the fall,
don’t know how to believe I am worthy
without proving it first to them all.
But I am learning—
slowly, painfully, honestly learning—
that strength is not the absence of ache,
that survival is not the same as living,
that there is still so much of me to wake.
I am learning that I can set boundaries
without setting myself on fire,
that I can be both healing and hurting,
both exhausted and still full of desire.
That the girl who held everyone together
deserved someone to hold her too,
that the love I poured into others
was always meant to reach me through.
Maybe I am not unfinished—
maybe I am unfolding instead,
every broken piece a doorway,
every tear a word unsaid.
Maybe I was never meant
to become something polished and cold,
never meant to be a diamond—
because diamonds don’t feel,
don’t fracture, don’t fight to stay whole.
Maybe I was meant to be fire-born,
to carry both shadow and soul,
to be something softer, something burning—
because even coal remembers the sun,
even coal holds heat in its core,
even coal, when given the right kind of love,
can become so much more.