When I was younger, I believed in everything too much.

I believed that people meant every single word they said. I believed that they meant every pinky promise they made. That friendships last forever if you stay loyal and kind enough. I believed silence meant someone is upset and anger meant someone is hungry. I thought love, if it exists, must be loud and forever.

I used to cry very easily. Not just when I was hurt but when I was moved easily. I used to cry on anything — praises, compliments, scoldings, or partings.Everything touched me like a line of poetry I couldn’t unread. It made me feel too much that I felt something was wrong with me.

So, I grew up. I started hardening up. Quietly.

I stopped reciting the same. I stopped letting my emotions show up uninvited. I created a version of myself that was quieter on outside while the inside was loud. I thought that was what growing up meant. To carry your softness in secret.

But sometimes I still miss that girl. The one who believed that a look meant love or that you don’t have to explain yourself to people who truly see you.

Growing up is unlearning all of that.

It is watching people leave even when you love them. It’s realising that not everyone you trust is careful with what you give. It’s letting go of the version of yourself that was built on unspoken hope and soft assumptions.

and here’s the thing I hold close —

Growing up doesn’t mean becoming cold.

It means learning to love in prose, not poetry. To be careful, not closed. To feel deeply but not let it undo you. To know the difference between fantasy and faith — and still choose faith.

There’s still a part of me that believes.

That believes in late-night messages that say I hope you’re okay. In a love that stays even when it changes form.

She still believes in poetry — she just writes it differently now.