The Many Deaths of I

<p>Before the first death came I was everything at once. I was whole but didn't know it.</p><p>Wore myself like borrowed clothing. Spoke<br>with someone else's voice.<br>Dreamed in shapes too small for my body.</p><p>They said Find yourself.<br>But I was everywhere. In every compromise. In every ache. In every smile that didn't reach my spine.</p><p>I didn't lose myself all at once. I died in moments. In fragments. In whispers. Thirty times-each softer and more necessary than the last.</p><p>This is not a story of survival. This is a story of shedding.<br>Of saying No not this until what remains feels like truth.</p><p>If you are here reading reaching-you've died a few times too. And if you haven't you will. But don't be afraid.</p><p>Sometimes we have to disappear<br>to become visible.</p>