Too Dimensional

Don’t be too dimensional. Keep your skin uncreased, your grin consistent, soft and thin. A shifting tone invites the ear to stray— one spoken word may just betray a thought you mean to weigh.

The ones who warn you do it in your name: they claim that change is loss, that heat is shame. They fear the crack that forms before the flame and call it fault, though they designed the frame. They tighten rules, then fault you for the strain— the bruise they paint, then blame you for the stain. They smooth your stance until it fails to grow, then hold you up as proof of what they know. You learn to dim, to bend, to not provoke, to wrap your voice in gauze before you spoke. The mask they give you fits if you don’t breathe. You earn their love by learning how to leave— not all at once, but inch by practiced inch, a self erased with every softened flinch. And when you're quiet, still, and nearly right, they call you strong for giving up the fight.

But somewhere in the silence you defend, a thought remains that doesn’t want to end. It will not flatten, will not fade or fold, won’t trade its heat for someone else’s cold. And if it burns, then let it light your name. Don’t wear their calm, and don’t accept their shame. You are not wrong for being made of more— too many rooms behind too few a door. What doesn’t fit was never yours to lose. What holds its shape was never yours to choose. So split the frame. Let every edge be known. They want you small. So learn to stand alone.