The Volume of Me Shrinking
No one notices how small you’ve gotten until you can’t find your own voice under the weight of being good. This is how I disappeared, one polite inch at a time.
I didn’t shrink all at once.
It was quiet.
Incremental.
First, my laughter dropped a decibel
to match the room’s comfort.
Then my wants spoke softer than yours.
Then my needs whispered themselves into ulcers
that kept me humble enough to be liked.
A yes here.
A silence there.
A softening
of what used to be steel.
I got so good at shrinking
that standing tall felt rude.
I called it selflessness
when really it was self-erasure
served with a polite grin.
Until the day came,
I couldn’t hear myself
over the sound of being like.
They never asked where my edges went,
only praised how smooth I stayed,
how agreeable my bones sounded
when I bent them into shapes they could sit beside
without guilt.
I didn’t vanish overnight.
I carved myself down politely,
one softened laugh at a time,
one half-swallowed no at a time,
until what was left of me
fit neatly under someone else’s comfort.
They mistook my shrinking for grace,
my polite nods for goodness.
But deep down, the ghost of my full height
still rattled my ribs,
still cried for me to stand up
while I hushed it with more smiling.
By the time I realized I couldn’t hear myself
over the applause for my smallness,
I had to choose:
stay easy to love
or grow back into a throat that might roar.
I’m not done growing yet.
If my truth is rude now,
good.
It’s the sound of my spine
coming home to its full, inconvenient length.
I know better now.
Shrinking doesn’t make you loveable,
it just makes you vanish.
I’d rather be too much than be nothing at all.
P.S.
If this stirred something in you,
it might speak to someone else too.
Feel free to pass it on.
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