8.23.24 // A Wildflower

Sometimes, I feel like a wildflower caught in the meticulously replicated landscaped flower beds.
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I am dancing alone in the breeze, caught with a different color, scent, and purpose. Wild in my name, I am unable to meld, label myself, and find solace in the conformity and masses. I am growing in self-understanding and purpose, yet lonely in my journey toward the sunshine.
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Sometimes, I feel like a freshwater fish thrown haphazardly into the ocean.
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I am slowly drowning in a world that looks familiar but tastes so different as the grit coats my scales. I want to adjust, to breathe, to feel at home, but the salt stings my eyes, and my lungs all but scream as I try to find solace in the salinity.
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Sometimes, I feel like a deciduous tree in a sea of evergreens.
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I change with the seasons and am unable to hold steady in the face of the seasonal shifts. I see my counterparts green amid the white winter snow and the gray clouds covering the horizon as I shiver, my final brown leaves retreating to the soil.
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The friction feels palpable. But it's not me against you or me against them. It's me against myself. It's me against my mind. It's me against the pressure and cultural expectations of what is deemed as "successful" or valid and my calling for freedom. So I find myself unable to fit into the perfectly aligned flower beds, glistening fish of the Pacific, or spruce trees on the mountainside.
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I find myself lost in between. Not free, but not kept. Hovering in purgatory, yearning to pick a side and shutting the locks of my mind once I do. A decision, a choice, an action, a voice.
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And yet, I remain, lonely in limbo.