I met a version of myself,
A past that lived in quiet hell,
His shoulders weighed with untold truths,
In his eyes, the ghosts of youth.
He stood, proud but lost inside,
A prisoner of dreams denied,
I knelt in shame, a ghost of me,
Torn between what was and could be.
"You know," I said, "you've been this way,
Caught in a cage where shadows play,
But let me tell you, now I see,
You're still inside of me, and free."
He smiled with pain, the truth untold,
"I never wanted this, you know—
This life of striving to please the blind,
The masks we wore, the thoughts we mined."
But in his eyes, I saw the change,
A flicker in the dark, so strange,
And I realized, as time flew past,
We'd both been caught, both built to last.
Now here I stand, no more a slave,
No longer bound to past’s dark wave,
I freed myself, and freed him too,
The shackles gone, the world anew.
And though the road remains unclear,
I hold his voice, I hold it near,
For in his steps, I see my own—
The strength I’ve sought, now fully grown.
The shame, the guilt, they start to fade,
Replaced by light, by love’s cascade,
And in that moment, I finally see,
That all I sought was always me.
This piece delves into the internal struggle of reconciling with past mistakes and the weight of self-imposed expectations. The conversation between present and past selves brings out the complexity of personal growth and the forgiveness needed to move forward. It's about understanding that even in the darkest moments, there's a path to healing—by embracing the truth, forgiving yourself, and realizing that growth is a journey, not an instantaneous transformation.
