Past keeps its hands on my ankles.

One step forward, it tugs like I owe it breath.

I look over my shoulder and the air bruises.

I don’t cry. If I leak, I flood. If I flood, I disappear.

So I padlock the heart. I stand very still.

People call it “strong.”

I call it “don’t move or it’ll bite.”

When does a seal become a coffin, and who signed my name on it.

You were kind the way morning is kind.

Soft, relentless, all over everything.

I was a knife pretending to be a spoon.

We loved like a rehearsal for court.

You cried and the room crowned me villain.

I believed it because I am efficient at blame.

If I’m the problem, I’m also the solution.

If I’m the solution, I don’t have to leave you.

But we both bled, didn’t we.

Your innocence had sharp edges.

My logic had teeth.

I kept rearranging myself and called it growth.

You kept calling it love and placed it like a mirror

where I only saw what was wrong.

I am tired of being a museum of almosts.

I am tired of learning how to walk without rattling.

Still, the past is a hinge.

Doors use it to move.

Some days I can carry it.

Some days it stirs and the floor tilts.

My voice goes static, my hands go glass,

and everyone says “See? crazy,”

when really I’m just trying not to shatter loud.

Tell me to stop turning around.

Say it like a steady hand on my back.

Tell me the fight behind me has already lost me,

that I don’t owe old fires fresh oxygen.

Promise me there is a road that doesn’t ask for blood.

Say “brighter” and mean “possible.”

Say “later” and mean “alive.”

Say there is a future that doesn’t need me to prove I deserve it.

Because I need it more than I need accuracy.

Because today I choose forward even if it drags.

Because if I look back, I love you.

And loving you has always been the fastest way

to watch myself break beautifully