Unbecoming [Narrated]

In yesterday’s Flashback Friday, I revisited a story I wrote four years ago—about a sledding mishap that ended with me breaking through the crust of a snow-covered lake of frozen chicken shit.

It was meant to be funny. And in many ways, it still is.
But after I posted the new version, I found myself reflecting on how different it felt from the original.

The first one was polished, practiced. It kept things tidy.
It told the story without really telling it.

Later, I read a chapter from Kathy Parker’s Bless the Daughters, about the mother wound and inherited patterns. It landed hard.
I ran both versions of my story—and that chapter—through ChatGPT and asked what it saw.

What came back wasn’t just analysis. It was recognition.

• Hyper-independence as survival.

• Emotional attunement as protection.

• Performing for love.

• Losing myself when I finally let someone in.

I got it—the words, the logic, how it all fits together.
But sometimes dry, almost clinical language needs to be translated into something more embodied.

That’s where this poem comes in.

A reckoning with all that wasn’t said.

Unbecoming

Not everything that shaped me
was spoken aloud.
Some truths were absorbed
in silence—
in glances that warned,
in warmth that never came,
in recognition never bestowed.

Holding on
without ever asking why.
Gripping hard
to prove my worth.
That I mattered.
That I belonged.

It’s not disappearing
when it earns you praise.
Learning to vanish
in just the right ways—
muting your voice,
swallowing your needs,
leaving all your best parts
in other rooms.

Patterns not mine,
but living in and upon me,
like a second skin.
Following rules
I never agreed to.
Carrying weight
misread for love.

Some truths
still won’t be spoken.
Abandoning myself
to delay the sentence.
Mistaking kindness
for danger—
and misnaming it instinct.
Carrying shame
like a second spine.

It’s not about blame.
It’s about ending the performance.
Mouthing: never again.
This ends with me.

I want to hear
what I silenced—
the voice I muted,
the ache I buried,
the wounds I smoothed over,
the child I abandoned
to stay safe.

I won’t perform to be loved.
I won’t vanish to be chosen.
I won’t wrap myself in silence
anymore.

This isn’t a declaration.
It’s a practice.
Slowly, steadily—
unbecoming.

Unbecoming the man
that no one came back for.
Still here.
Still learning
what to hold,
and what to release.