The Golden Egg
Read more poetry by Britt Wolfe
They called you special
before you had a chance
to become anything at all.
They held you up
as proof of their goodness,
their brilliance,
their rightness—
and you learned early
that love arrived conditionally,
wrapped in applause.
You were the golden child.
Warm in their hands.
Fragile.
Valued not for what you were,
but for what you reflected back.
Your reward was proximity to power.
Your currency was alignment.
You learned how to listen for preference
before you learned how to want.
How to echo before you learned how to speak.
How to absorb a personality
whole
and wear it like a second skin.
Because deviation was dangerous.
If you disagreed,
if you softened where they were sharp,
if you loved what they dismissed—
the gold dulled.
The light withdrew.
So you stayed loyal.
Not out of malice,
but out of survival.
You carried their opinions
like commandments.
Their grievances
like heirlooms.
Their hunger for control
like a gift you were told
was yours to wield—
until it wasn’t.
The power they let you borrow
was never really power.
It was permission.
And permission can always be revoked.
What they didn’t give you
was a self.
There was no room for one.
Identity requires friction,
and friction threatened the illusion.
So you learned to smooth yourself out,
to become agreeable architecture,
to exist as extension rather than origin.
People mistook this for confidence.
For strength.
For entitlement.
But it was hollowing.
Because the cost of being chosen
was never being known.
And now—
if there is confusion in you,
if there is anger,
if there is a frantic guarding of position—
it makes sense.
You were taught that love disappears
the moment you stop performing.
You were never allowed to fail safely.
Never allowed to be ordinary.
Never allowed to leave
without losing everything you were promised.
So you stayed.
Golden,
unformed,
terrified of cracking.
This is not condemnation.
This is grief.
For the person you might have been
if being loved
had not required
self-erasure.
For the self you never met
because it was never safe
to grow one.
Poor golden child.
You were not lucky.
You were used.
And even now,
shining in borrowed light,
you are still waiting—
whether you know it or not—
to be loved
without conditions,
without mirrors,
without fear
that choosing yourself
will make you disappear.
Keep My Words Alive
If this poem has stayed with you, you can help keep my words alive or explore more of my work. Every bit of support helps carry the stories forward.
WHERE WORDS MEET MORNING LIGHT
BEGIN EACH DAY WITH SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL
Every morning at 11:11AM, I send a poem — sometimes soft, sometimes devastating, always true.
💚 Subscribe now to read and breathe and feel along with me 💚
Poetry Anthologies by Britt Wolfe:
