Lesson of the Cicada

Growing
is hard work.
Not just expanding
but changing.

Completely.

Anything that cannot grow
enough, anything
that restricts,
must be peeled off.

Even your own skin must split,
crack open, give way,
if you must force
a way out. Even if it slices,
even if this leaves you raw
and wet and vulnerable.

And after this struggle
look back. How little it is,
what had confined you.
How fragile. How empty.
How nothing, now,
without you.