What if birth is not a beginning
but a riddle wrapped in skin,
a folded geometry of soul
left to unfold
one breath at a time?
What if we are not meant to bloom,
but to fracture slowly
to wrestle with hunger
until it teaches us
the shape of longing,
until the horizon
no longer outruns our hearts?
We do not begin with wisdom.
We begin as ache
pure, primal ache
an unfinished sentence
spoken in the dialect of our need.
The world does not explain.
It vibrates.
It taps at the shell
of our unknowing
until stillness becomes a language
and silence becomes a guide.
Somewhere between
the third fall of pride
and the first burial of wonder,
we feel the scaffolding stir
not outside us,
but within.
Not to lift us,
but to remind us:
we were always meant
to carry sky
in the depth of our being.
Transformation is not ascension.
It is demolition.
It is the collapse
of the old temple
we mistook for self.
Becoming light
is not weightless.
It is surrender
to the burden of awareness,
to the salt of silence,
to the dissolving of every name
you gave yourself to survive.
The cocoon is not sleep.
It is judgment.
Each cell recalls the lie
that shaped it.
Each limb whispers,
“I was never whole there.”
Metamorphosis is not polite.
It breaks locks
you didn't know were doors.
And flight?
Flight is not motion.
It is the cessation of resistance.
It is the unlearning
of destination.
It is the tasting of sky
with a mouth
no longer asking for proof.
I do not seek meaning.
I live alongside it
as shadow,
as rhythm,
as breath turned inward.
I wear my past
as softened armor.
I bow to the wind
not for freedom,
but for its honesty
it names nothing,
yet moves all.
And perhaps,
this is the truth we miss:
we were never meant
to become.
We were always
meant to remember
what we already are.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
July 2025
The Unfolding Within
