Before the Shrinking Began

There is a place in my chest where I have set something down so carefully that the my whole life had to rearrange itself around the weight of it,
There is a place in my chest where I have set my most unguarded hope and tell myself the vision when underneath it was closer to fear and excitement,
There is a place in my chest where I have set a dream so deeply that my whole body responds before my mind has a chance to ask what is actually happening,
Can I honestly look at what I have placed in that center of myself and ask whether I chose it freely or whether it is just the fear of arriving empty-handed,
There is a place in my chest where I have set something I call mine but now that it has quietly become the thing that holds me more completely than I have ever managed to hold...

I’ve given up the power to my steadiness to outcomes that I cannot touch or guarantee and told myself that this is simply what caring for a dream deeply looks like,
I've given up the power to the whole seasons of actually being here to the future version of life I keep rehearsing instead of asking to live my life right now,
I’ve given up the power to feel good about myself to something that doesn’t see me and wouldn’t even care if it did,
What would it feel like if I took back just a fraction of the steadiness I have been giving away to something that cannot receive,
I’ve given up the power to do so much for so long that I have genuinely lost track of what was mine to begin with and what I gave away thinking it was love when it was mostly just the “fear” alone with all different disguises…

The thing I keep pining stole my peace without ever agreeing to give anything back in exchange for what I have already spent,
The thing I keep pining for does not know the prayer I have ever hoped for even if it arrived at once in a clean and desperate pile,
The thing I keep pining for has become the condition I have placed on my own to feel settled and enough; like the day I am living inside with or without the value in it,
When did I make the decision that my life couldn’t truly begin until the thing I’ve been yearning for finally came to fruition,
The thing I’ve been yearning for is not a specific destination, but rather a particular posture that I’ve been living in for so long has become the entire landscape without even realizing it…

I’ve been shrinking myself down each time my dreams didn’t come true, because I started to believe that the gap between what I want and what I have is a sign of a personal flaw I’m still willing to work on…
I’ve been shrinking myself down each time I placed my sense of worth inside something external and then watched the external thing fail,
I’ve been shrinking myself down each time I agreed that the wanting was the same as the obstacle without stopping to ask whether the problem was the desire or the grip itself,
Is the ache I feel right now coming from the absence of the thing or from the years I have spent building my whole life around a door that may or may not ever open,
I’ve been shrinking myself unconsciously each time, and now I’m not entirely sure how to occupy the full amount of space I was originally given before it even began…

Watchwords:
I set my hope down where it owns me,
Handed steadiness to what cannot return it,
Pining made the longing the whole landscape,
The gap between wanting and having broke me
Shrinking without noticing the space I lost...