I Travelled Far to Find Myself

A poem about figuring out what it means to be yourself.

I travelled far to find myself
But I only took eight steps
The distance that I put behind me, it seems
Was only in my head.

There were mountains I had to climb,
And monsters I had to slay
I glued together the broken pieces of my heart
And formed a beating mosaic.

Fire burned my soft skin into armour
It's scorching touch now a weapon
And though my lungs were filled with water
The stones tied to my back only made me stronger.

My trembling hands no longer shied away
From the fear of a bite of cake,
I fought until the serpents around my neck
No longer paralyzed my breath

Until I finally came to an emptiness, an abyss
Where I saw myself bare, naked, exposed.
As the one I have always been but too afraid to see
As the person that I have become and the person I want to be
And I shout into this darkness and I scream into the void
I do not know what I expect to hear
In the deafening silence that engulfs my ears
I do not know which I fear more
An echo, or an answer