Regretfully, Yours Truly

I’m having a hard time feeling.
This is how I’m coping.

Today, I am thinking about how there are younger versions of me that are present in their moment. Their timeline. Facing things I’ve already grown resilience to.

There are past versions of me crying right now, and that makes my heart hurt—knowing that there will always be versions of me constantly feeling pain.

But I’m also thinking about future versions of myself, who are also in their present.
Probably doing things I never imagined myself doing, with knowledge I’ve never dreamed of having.

I still cry for those past versions of myself, ’cause I don’t think she deserved any of the things life did to her.

I wonder if the future version of me still cries for the me now.
I wonder if she sends me signs through dreams—letters through music.

There are things I hope for my future self.
Like, I hope she’s been able to untangle everything in my head.
That she actually figured out what her goals were—and made plans to get there.

But despite my best efforts to disappear into dreams and distractions about the future, I’m still here.

I just turned 23, on the 1st.

And unfortunately for me, I’m still trying to make peace with 22. This is everything it left me with—consider this my attempt at romanticizing the present.

I don’t chase dead things anymore.
You can’t bring them back, and even if you tried, you’d only be left haunted.
And haunted people build houses so big and winding to try to hide from the ghosts.
Haunted people lock all the doors—and sit in the house anyway.

Be careful what you chase when you’re raw.
Not everything gives you clarity the way you think it does.
Validation and fake admiration, and respect and love, all fall into the same category of feeling for me.

And that’s dangerous for a person like me.
Because when you can’t decipher between what you want, what you need, what makes you feel good, and what makes you whole…
You start chasing illusion, hoping to find substance.

I still believe that people can be better than their patterns.
That’s to my own detriment—I know.
And maybe future me has figured out how to kill off that part of me.
’Cause the truth is, this part keeps me spinning in loops long after the ride’s over.

I write love in my head and wait for someone to name it.
Which is confusing, I know—but I’m poetry not many understand. And that’s okay.

I like people who don’t flinch when I show them the real stuff.
’Cause it means they’re solid like me. Grounded down here.
It feels like we could brush the dirt clean off and start planting trees in the same things that brought us shame.

I like feeling warm and untouchable—like sun you can’t hold.
That leaves me lonely.
And sometimes I’m okay with it. Most days, I’m not.

I’m not going to lie—when I think about my future, my heart burns.
A deep-down sensation that tries to disintegrate my insides.
A feeling I’m sure you also know all too well.

This feeling is not akin to heartbreak.
It’s different in the way that an old wound flinches when the weather changes.
It lingers in your bones without needing a reason.

It’s a low-grade panic—an ache of being alive.

I have vices that still make sounds under my floorboards.
So when they creak in the night, I’m often startled awake.
But what keeps me calm is knowing they’re beneath me.
Under my feet. And that I’m the one who placed them there.

I had a dream about my grandma last night.
And she told me I was the truth teller.

Whatever the fuck that means.

Thank you.