Shapeshifter

What is a shapeshifter really?
I ask myself that more than I want to admit.
Some days I think it might be me.

Maybe it’s all of us.
We keep shifting,
shrinking,
stretching,
trying to match whatever outline the world draws for us.
Too tall.
Too short.
Too soft.
Too loud.
Too much, then somehow not enough.
The mold keeps moving and we keep trying to catch up.
 
Maybe a shapeshifter isn’t a creature from a story.
Maybe it’s anyone who learned to survive by becoming what everyone else needed.
Maybe it’s someone who forgot the sound of their own voice because they’ve been speaking in the version that makes other people comfortable.
 
Shapeshifting can feel like strengthor it can feel like disappearing.
It can be protection
or slow, quiet self-loss.
It can save you
or hollow you out.
 
And at the end of the day
there is only one question left:
am I changing because I want to,
or because I am terrified of staying who I am?