I’ve died so many quiet deaths—
shedding selves that were never wrong,
just no longer true.

Each one carried me
as far as it could
before laying itself down
so I could rise.

Now that I’ve found healing,
I see it was always there—
a quiet knowing,
guiding me forward
through the dark.

But now I wonder—
was it the knowing that shaped the path,
or the path that shaped the knowing?
Did I become who I was meant to be,
or did I simply arrive
where I’d always been?