I’ve spent my life chasing after superstitions, trusting. pieces of advice, and clinging to the comfort of hearsay as if it held the truth of what would make me whole.
People tell you to leave things alone, to let life handle what you can’t. “Fighting fire with fire only leaves you burned,” they say. So, I’ve learned to watch flames rise and fall, hoping that time or distance or some miracle would be enough to smother them.
I’ve learned to turn away, to let the fire burst out in rage, to hold my breath as I walk away, to tell and pat myself that some things just aren’t meant to be saved.
But they never tell you how heavy it is to carry all that you couldn’t bear to watch burn.
They don’t tell you about the weight that sinks deeper with every step you take, because letting go doesn’t mean you stop feeling it.
Letting go means you drag that quiet grief along with you, and there would be an ache that settles beneath your ribs. Letting go is walking away with anger unspoken, and with sorrow that’s never been comforted. They never tell you about how silent you have to be just to hold everything in. To feel the heat of a thousand uncried tears, to wish you could scream it all out knowing there’s no one left to hear.
And no matter how hard I try to convince myself that I’m okay, that I’m free now, the questions come back, like waves crashing against stone.
Where do I lay down this grief that I’ve carried for so long?
Where do I bury the anger?
Where do I scream the words I never said? the words that died on my lips because I was too afraid to say them out loud?
How do I make peace with the questions that will never be answered?
the apologies I’ll never hear?
And how do I quiet the haunting of memories I left in that burning room — the parts of me that burned that I know I’ll never get back?
They say that time heals, that the fire fades. But they don’t tell you that some fires never truly die. They leave scars that throb with every heartbeat, like a reminder that no matter how far you run, some things stay with you.
Sometimes, despite the distance you’ve walked, your feet find you back at square one. And in that moment, when you watch yourself strike another match, you would realize you’re here again, back in a slow smoldering burn — somewhere not close enough to be romantic, yet just close enough to hurt.
“Perhaps we only leave so we may return. Perhaps the return is all we’ve longed for all along.” — Nayyirah Waheed
| 安迪.
