✨ “Learning to Float” — A Poetic Reflection for the Price of Alignment ✨
Alignment sounds cute until you’re in it.
Until life starts stripping, shedding, and burning the versions of you that were never yours to begin with.
This poem poured out in the middle of one of those seasons — where survival mode no longer fits, but peace hasn’t fully landed yet.
If you’re floating in the in-between right now… this one’s for you.
I didn’t know alignment came with a death toll.
Nobody told me the price of elevation was everything I thought I was…
burning away piece by piece
until all that’s left
is the truth I kept trying not to look at.
This year stripped me.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Just when I thought I was done shedding,
Life said,
“No, Queen… there’s more.”
Another layer.
Another ego death.
Another identity that wasn’t mine
falling off like old skin.
And I finally get it now—
why people stay stuck.
Why they cling to familiar hells
instead of risking unfamiliar heavens.
Stuck feels safer.
Stuck feels cheaper.
Stuck doesn’t demand that you bury
the version of yourself you spent years surviving with.
But me?
I’m in too deep.
I’ve walked too far into the fire
to pretend I don’t recognize my own heat.
I’m tired.
Soul-tired.
Bone-tired.
The kind of tired you can’t sleep off
because it’s spiritual.
But I’m done drowning.
I’m learning to float now.
Letting the waves hold me
instead of fighting the damn tide.
Letting my breath soften
instead of bracing for the next hit.
Letting myself exist
in the in-between.
The space before the breakthrough
but after the breaking.
I’ll float
until I remember how to swim again.
I’ll swim
until I remember how to fly again.
And I’ll fly
because I finally understand—
my ascension is inevitable.
I was born to rise — and I will.
If this hit your soul, share it.
Drop a 🖤 in the comments.
Or forward it to someone who’s still floating — because sometimes, just knowing you’re not alone is the breakthrough.