It’s a weird feeling when you’ve pulled out the final stick from who you claimed to be and the structure fell upon you. And you’re there, standing in the ruins, alone.

There’s a core to you, of course, but who really are you when you dust settles? After so long with something so false you tried to make yourself believe it, too… but it’s collapsed and there’s nothing of substance left of you. 

So you built it anew. There’s not much else you can do, right? You’ve got to reforge yourself into who you were meant to be, not the lie you relied on for decades to keep yourself safe.

But it’s terrifying, isn’t it? But in the destruction of everything you were, you can see a road far worse than the one you’ve chosen to walk. Don’t look back.

And when next you look in the mirror and still don’t recognise yourself, you’ll realize eventually, maybe, it’ll be okay. 

The pillars crumbled from within. Bit by bit, it ate away at you, unable to hold such a secret over everyone. It wasn’t the secret itself though, was it. It was how it made you feel.

How it made you come undone in all of the worst possible ways when you couldn’t sleep in the middle of the night, sure that no one had ever felt as low as you did. 

Brick by brick, the gnawing sensation inside your ribcage that told you “this is wrong” ate away at you until there was nothing left. Nothing to turn to. No one to relate to you. So you bit the proverbial bullet lest you bite the literal one.

You threw off the cloth suppressing your true being and you told them. You told them the truth for once. You let all your carefully crafted masks shatter under the weight of being yourself.

And sure, maybe this wasn’t what you’d ever intended. Without those masks, could you really tell who you’re meant to be?

You’ve built yourself up into someone new; you’ve watched as the dust settled. You’re free now. Free to be who you want to be, who you need to be. You’re no longer bound by the shackles of others’ ideals of who you should be.

You’re you, after all. And that’s all you can be.