They say, she say, "Move on."
I did.
Now here's the riddle:
What gets buried without a grave,
Breaks without a sound,
Loses everything it thought it needed,
Then comes back impossible to hold down?
Me.
I used to read posts like coded scriptures,
Hunting for clues in views, paying dues to old pictures.
Studying captions like maps leading back to gold,
Till I realized I was searching for treasure in a story already told.
You with him.
Them.
Whoever.
Wrong equation.
Does the sun ask permission before it rises?
Does the eagle audit the altitude of pigeons?
Does a lion lose sleep
Over opinions from sheep?
I stopped scrolling.
Stopped polling.
Stopped patrolling old memories.
Because every glance backward
Was a tax on my destiny.
Here's another riddle:
What looks like a burial
But is actually a beginning?
A seed.
They thought the dirt was defeating me.
Nah.
The pressure was completing me.
Every heartbreak became compost.
Every setback became rainfall.
Every betrayal became topsoil.
And the soil of my suffering
Started producing a harvest of self-respect.
See, roots and truths rhyme different,
But they both survive underground.
The deepest growth happens in places
Nobody applauds.
I was a caterpillar writing eulogies
For a life I was never meant to keep.
Didn't know the cocoon wasn't a coffin—
It was a private meeting
Between potential and purpose.
I was winter,
Thinking spring forgot my name.
Till blossoms started appearing
From branches that looked dead.
I was coal under pressure,
Misreading the furnace as punishment,
Not knowing the fire
Was negotiating a deal with the diamond.
The old me chased butterflies.
The new me became the garden.
The old me knocked on doors.
The new me builds buildings.
The old me searched for validation.
The new me validates value.
The old me watched the horizon.
The new me owns the view.
My simping days are fossils now,
Ancient bones from an extinct belief system.
Exhibit A:
Confusing attention with intention.
Exhibit B:
Mistaking access for affection.
Exhibit C:
Making somebody else the author
Of a book written with my pen.
Never again.
See, I wasn't losing a person.
I was losing an illusion.
And illusions are expensive—
They charge your peace
For their appearance.
Here's the cold part:
I didn't become stronger because I healed.
I healed because I became stronger.
Read that twice.
Because resilience is strange.
I'm bamboo in a hurricane—
The storm bends me,
But that's how I learned I never break.
I'm bedrock beneath a landslide—
Everything above me changed,
But my foundation remained.
I'm a redwood after hard winters—
The winds that uprooted smaller trees
Only taught my roots commitment.
The same pain that was sent to break me
Ended up introducing me to me.
While they were laughing,
I was grafting new branches.
While they were posting,
I was growing.
While they were choosing,
I was becoming.
So here's the final riddle:
What burns but doesn't perish?
Falls apart but improves?
Gets buried,
Yet rises?
Gets abandoned,
Yet arrives?
A phoenix?
Close.
A man who finally discovered
That his value was never on loan.
The ashes became soil.
The soil became roots.
The roots became a forest.
And now the forest doesn't argue with the axe.
It simply outlives it.
Welcome to the new era.
I'm HIM.
Not because somebody wants me.
Not because somebody misses me.
Not because somebody picked me.
Because I solved the riddle:
The blessing was never who left.
The blessing was becoming the man
Their departure revealed.
Fin.