past 2

I am done being so optimistic so let me rewrite it. They say to never look back especially not in the past. But what if the past is the only place where my name was said without breaking What if it’s the last room where I knew how to sit still without apologizing for taking up space.

I try not to turn around. I really do. But the present keeps slipping through my hands like water from the faucer I’m too tired to cup, and the future feels like a promise written by someone who doesn’t fucking know me.

So I look back. Not carefully. Not wisely. Obviously not thinking. I look back the way you chase someone who didn’t say goodbye properly. There’s a version of me back there who hadn’t learned all the ways things could go wrong. She still believed effort meant something. She still thought love stayed if you were good enough, quiet enough, patient enough.

I want to run to her. I want to grab her shoulders and say, don’t go forward. Just kill yourself now. It is much better for you, for all because it gets heavier. You will learn words you never wanted to learn.

My therapist warn me that the past is a dead end, but it feels alive compared to now. It laughs sometimes. It fycking hurts, yes, but at least it recognizes me.

The present only asks for more. More strength. More endurance. More patience. More love. More sacrifice. More positivity. More effort. More pretending that I’m fine while my chest caves in politely. My mind breaking like bones to brittle to even stand.

So I chase the past like it owes me something, closure, maybe. I don't know. Or maybe a proof that I wasn’t always this tired, this hollowed out by responsibility and time.

I miss the small things the most. The waiting. The believing. The silent prayers that mean everything. The quiet hope that tomorrow would be kinder just because I existed. Now tomorrow feels like an obligation. Another day I have swim when I am already drowning. It something I drag myself into out of habit, not faith.

They say don’t chase what’s gone. But how do you stop when everything ahead feels unfamiliar, so heavy, so impossible, and everything behind still knows your shape?

I know I can’t live there again. I fucking know that. But knowing doesn’t stop the grief from sprinting ahead of reason. Or anger. Sometimes I wish I could dissolve into memory, become a ghost of my own life, haunting the days when I still thought things would work out somehow. And I would stay there maybe I won't be so happy as I thought but I bet I won't be so damn miserable as well.

If I keep looking back, it’s not because I don’t want to move forward. It’s because part of me is still running, arms outstretched, trying to catch the last moment before everything started asking too much of me.

And maybe that’s the tragedy, not that the past is gone, but that I am still chasing it while it keeps moving further away, never turning around, never slowing down, leaving me here with a heart that remembers and a future that doesn’t feel like home.