(Poems about Breaking, Transition, Pain and Fear)

When I stepped into my late twenties, something quiet yet seismic began to shift inside me. I was once a girl full of ease, casual, unbothered, always first in line for the wildest rollercoaster rides. I used to chase adrenaline like it was my second nature. But somewhere along the way, I became the responsible one. The one who bore expectations on her shoulders like a carefully balanced stack of porcelain plates, fragile, and never allowed to fall.

I landed my first job, the one I once believed to be the culmination of all my dreams. It aligned perfectly with what I studied in college, a full-circle moment. But within months, it became the lasting nightmare to wake up with. The job, the title, the supposed pride, none of it brought peace. The very expectations that once lit a fire in me now became the reason I stayed up late, exhausted yet unable to rest.

And suddenly, the things I once loved no longer fit. The rollercoaster made me nauseous. The thrill I used to crave now put me unease. The spontaneity I wore like a second skin began to feel foreign. It was as if I had outgrown a version of myself, but hadn’t yet found the next one.

In that season, I found myself yearning for safety, craving it in ways I hadn’t before. It was almost instinctual, a quiet, feminine pull toward stability, toward shelter. Maybe it was the way nature reprograms women in their late twenties, whispering that it’s time to settle, to nurture, to reproduce, to belong. Or maybe it was society, louder, more urgent, telling me it’s time to find a husband. And since everyone did, it was time to exchange casual flings for serious intentions.

And so, I began searching. Searching for something permanent. I looked for my father’s steadiness in every man I met, hoping to mirror the security I once knew. Suddenly, the word wedding became fascinating. Magical, even. That one perfect day, that singular moment wrapped in white and soft lighting, curated to feel like a life achievement. It wasn’t just about a celebration, it was supposed to define my future, announce it.

Looking back, it’s strangely amusing, how deeply society convinced me that this was my sole purpose: to be chosen. To become a wife, and then, quickly after, a mother. I was never the ambitious kind. But right there, without realizing, I abandoned the search for myself. My passions, my curiosities, my little inner dreams, they were all packed and shelved. My needs faded into the background as I shifted my focus toward becoming someone worthy of being picked. 

Becoming someone’s forever.

The transformation was extreme. But It was deliberate. I changed how I dressed, softened the edges, chose modesty. I adjusted the way I spoke, gentler, more palatable. I revised how I carried myself in rooms, careful not to shine too loudly, not to offend with independence. I played the part well.

But no transformation is complete without some ache. There was pain beneath the performance. A hollowness I didn’t yet know how to name. A longing I couldn’t quite express. And an exhaustion, not just physical, but spiritual. A need for pause. A deep craving to slow down, to rest, to look closely at the path I was on and ask myself the questions I had avoided: 

“Is this who I am? And if it isn’t, who am I?”

That chapter of my life was not just a transition; it was a quiet unraveling. A tender shedding. And it taught me that becoming someone new often begins with losing the one you thought you had to be. And by losing, I mean losing many.

During this hard snake shedding time, I stumbled into an even darker chapter of life, one that no child ever truly prepares for. It was the unraveling of something I once believed to be unshakable: my parents’ marriage.

Their divorce came quietly but heavily, just as I was beginning to build a family of my own. It felt like the foundation I grew up on had cracked beneath my feet at the very moment I was trying to lay down bricks for a future.

Little did I know, the silence between them had been growing roots for years, creeping through birthdays, dinners, and everyday moments. There were so many feelings left unsaid, buried under routine and the illusion of peace. The home I once knew, the simple, steady place of my childhood, became complicated, like a memory I could no longer trust.

There are parts of their story I wish I could erase from my mind. Moments I wish I had never witnessed. Words I wish were never spoken. And the strange truth is;

No matter how old you are, no matter how many milestones you’ve reached, a divorce between your parents still splits you in two. It shakes the child inside of you, the one who believed love was permanent and families were forever.

These are poems written from that fracture, from the space between acceptance and ache. They are about me, standing alone in the echo of what used to be, facing a reality I didn’t choose. These words hold my regrets, my broken pieces, and the lonely in-betweens. They are, in many ways, letters to the silence that grew louder than love.