Uncovering The Ghosts Of The Past

Today I took a short voyage in time, uncovering what the water buried in the sand.

Versions of me with every person I chose to give a piece of my soul to. Unrecognizable.

Who was I then? Who am I now? What am I becoming? Voices repeatedly asking in agony.

Those ghosts, they do not shadow how I want to remember myself. It took all my will to find my way back to my reflection in the water, ready for it to devour me.

The wounded child who discovered what it was like not to have to lie for the first time, even after tearing who she wanted to be into pieces, cutting through the flesh to cater on demand to who they wanted her to be, she still was not enough.

A picture-perfect painting of a future that I, for the love of me, could never see.

Or was it the wholeness I thought I found in the arms of what I thought was real?

The child growing into this delicate woman, like a flower blooming in spring, ready to be picked up by its roots and placed in a holy garden, only to start losing its petals with every day spent basking in his sun.

A glorified vision, only because I was too tired to admit that it was only in my head. Here I was, becoming the painter rather than the painted, and now it’s all covered in black. A gap in my memory. The mind refuses to come to terms with the illusion it had created.

So I ran. I ran into the wild forest with its trees covering the skies, and I couldn’t tell if it was night or day. I couldn’t tell one day from the other. I couldn’t know if I was alone hiding behind this beast or surrounded by my own fears.

Maybe that child in me or the broken woman I turned into out of terror envisioned herself part of his pack. The softness of his fur and the brightness of his eyes blindfolded hers.

His claws and teeth bone-deep into her neck, and she, for a moment, she still thought she could make it through.

If only he could find himself in her pain, if he could see himself through her eyes—maybe they could both walk away in one piece. Perhaps they could have found the sun, the moon, the stars, and everything in between.

What is left of me? What is left for me?

I shed dreams like blistered skin. It hurts, and the new ones growing hurt even more. Forcing their roots into my thoughts, pushing their way in, I have no more room to think clearly.

My imaginations locked lips with reality, a forbidden love story that I can’t end.

Is it surprising that I choose to escape whenever I fall asleep? If I fall asleep.

Is it strange that I find comfort in monsters? After all, their truth is as painful as mine.