A Testament to Becoming

The clock always ticked louder than the murmurs,

its hands tracing circles I could not flee,

a carousel spinning in the dim-lit fog of time,

each painted horse wearing the face of my uncertainty.

Growing up was never about height or age—

it was learning how to stand still

without splintering into the silence.

They promised me purpose was a lighthouse,

its beam cutting through every shadow of doubt.

But mine resembled the fragile wick of a match,

guttering, clawing for oxygen in the hurricane

of other people’s ambitions.

What if the fire never took?

What if it devoured what it touched?

What if its warmth was mine alone,

while the rest of the world froze in my apathy?

Existentialism arrived first,

a lover with a cruel tongue

asking questions I could not answer.

Do you matter? Does anything?

The stars hung above, impassive spectators,

their cold light more mockery than guidance.

I told myself,

If the universe does not care, then I must.

But egocentrism lingered like a jealous twin,

tugging at my sleeve,

hissing,

What if this is all for you?

What if the narrative is yours alone?

What if there is no plot but the one you create?

I fight these specters in the spaces where breath slows—

under the hum of dimming streetlights,

in the mirror’s dispassionate gaze.

Some nights, I dissolve into the vastness,

a speck of dust adrift in a galaxy of silence,

relinquishing the need to matter.

Other nights, I am the axis,

the unyielding spark insisting

the world must remember my name,

etched into the brittle parchment of time.

Purpose is not a revelation;

it is a fugitive.

And though I run after it,

I find myself stumbling not on its trail,

but on the rails beneath my own feet.

Perhaps it is not the destination

but the echoes of my journey—

a vibration in the ether

that lingers long after my shadow fades.

I look to the sky now

and no longer demand its attention.

Let the stars burn their indifferent light;

I do not need their blessing.

I can blaze here, quietly,

without cosmic validation.

Growing up is the slow, deliberate act of unfolding—

a thousand creases pressed into me by expectation,

a delicate paper swan finally taking shape

from the chaos of other people’s hands.

I clutch the questions to my chest

like heirlooms from a future I will never inherit.

The war between purpose and self-importance

is not a conflict, but a pendulum’s rhythm—

a dance in endless motion.

And here I am, poised in the stillness of its swing:

neither child nor certainty,

but a thing in transition,

a quiet symphony of becoming,

building from the ash of my own unfolding

something fragile,

something unbroken,

something whole.