free, in fact

It’s a curious position

To be in when you suddenly

Find yourself detached enough

To discover

You are not trying to prove yourself

To anyone, through anything.

To suddenly discover

You are not your work

Or your relationships

Or your reputation.

To realise all the months of loss

Was the necessary pain

Of tethers being severed

Between your Self

And the things it thought it needed

In order to be a someone.

That you would never

have chosen the pain

But that on the other side

You would choose the freedom

That pain bought you

Every split second of every day.

To suddenly discover

The striving can stop

And that you are,

in fact,

free.