It’s all of our first time here,
every step taken on unfamiliar ground,
stumbling through the dark
and learning the lay of our own hearts.

How could we know the way?
This path we carve as we go,
with no maps handed down,
no signs saying right here is home.

We make mistakes like drops of ink,
spilled sugar scattering across clean floors,
or buckets overturned, dirty water everywhere—
it creeps into the corners, hard to sweep away.

I’ve lost things I held tight in my hands—
love I poured into others but forgot to save for myself,
clinging to people I should’ve let go,
keeping those I wanted near at arm’s reach,
not sure if it was for their safety, or my own.

And I wonder if the pain of losing them,
the ache of watching them leave,
was part of the way we’re taught to be whole again.

It took all these fractures, all this rebuilding,
to learn the value of being unfinished,
to accept that each broken piece
is another part of getting it right.

It takes a lifetime to remember who we are—
to unearth our courage, to mend what we break,
to hold ourselves as steady as we can,
even while the ground keeps shifting.

Because we’re all here, for the first time,
mistaken, but learning, a little stronger each fall,
finding our way through this tangled mess,
and piecing ourselves together along the way.