Pillowtalk

Past

I keep telling myself I want to heal, but the truth is I don’t even know who I am without the pain. It’s been with me so long it feels like my only identity, like the only constant in my life. I don’t know how to exist without it.          Breathing doesn’t feel like living anymore; it feels like bleeding, like every breath takes something from me instead of giving something back.

I thought moving away would fix my twisted mind in a way. I thought if I put enough distance between myself and my past, if I started over somewhere far away, I would finally feel different. I imagined feeling excited, alive, hopeful. But instead, I’m here — alone with my thoughts. And now I’m realizing how terrifying it is to be stuck inside your own head with no one else around. The silence is so loud.

I didn’t know how heavy it would be to sit with myself. I didn’t know that even with new streets, new skies, new walls, I would still carry all of this inside me. I thought I could run away from it, but it’s still here, sitting next to me, whispering the same stories over and over. I am a prisoner in my own mind, and the walls keep closing in.

I want to heal so badly. I want to feel like a person who’s alive, not just surviving. But I don’t even know where to start. I don’t know how to build a version of me that isn’t shaped around pain.

And sometimes, when it gets quiet enough, that realization crushes me...