Shed

This was the year

I stopped thinking my way through,

stopped asking the mind

what my body already knew.

I let weight lead,

let pulse decide,

let what resisted

be my guide.

The snake didn’t hurry.

It never asked me to.

It taught me change

comes close,

comes slow,

and stays

until it’s through.

Transformation is friction,

quiet and close —

the ache of a skin

that no longer grows.

I shed the self

who softened her say,

who overexplained

to stay okay.

That skin kept me living.

I thank it for that.

This year it grew tight.

This year it cracked.

Solitude wasn’t lonely.

It tuned me back home.

It taught me how to stay

without leaving my bones.

I sat with myself

and didn’t run,

didn’t bargain my weight

to be chosen or won.

What I’m building now

wasn’t forced or chased.

It came through digestion,

through time,

through taste.

I let it ripen

out of sight,

unnamed,

unclaimed,

until it knew its own right.

This wasn’t a year

of becoming new.

It was clearing the false

until only truth.

Not rebirth.

No fire.

No flame.

A return

to what answered

when nothing else came.

I didn’t reinvent.

I didn’t ascend.

I didn’t become someone else

in the end.

I stayed.

And what stayed

was familiar,

steady,

already mine —

settled at last

into the shape

it had been keeping

this whole time.