It’s a wild thing trying to escape the ghosts of your past.
And as you learn and experience and grow… you wonder who were the monsters and villains, and who were the victims?
A fuzzy blur of twisted memories, seared into your skin by another’s hand.
“Remember.”
And you wonder, how did these scars get here? Which monsters lured me in, and which did I run to like a child running to catch the ice cream truck?
At last, it doesn’t matter.
Because all that you run from comes to meet you somewhere in the future.
You look back to check, “am I safe?” And turn around to find that twisted memory, smiling at you through a new face.
“But I ran.”
“I changed.”
I begin to wonder how long I’d been running.
Was it from a past life right into this one? Looking behind my shoulder to see…just to check.
I used to think, some day it’ll all be for something. It’ll mean something. It’ll make sense.
It’s hard to face a monster, or a faceless ghost. Because you’re facing your greatest fear, as well as the part of you that created that fear.
No longer can I hide behind my youth or my innocence. When you stop being a victim you have to face the monster inside of yourself.
The one that doesn’t seem like a monster, but it creates debilitating fear and will sabotage anything to protect and hide.
It’s hard to be abused for a long time and to be told that it’s your fault. You are the reason that someone is mistreating you.
That the truth you see before your eyes is not truth, that you should abandon what you know and observe and quietly and blindly follow another’s lead.
It makes your mind twist in strange ways, it makes you question everything that you are.
And countless years of untangling and re-tangling and untangling. It makes you weary.
I can say absolutely that all that is buried and ignored will rise again. And that one by one, all that is hidden must be faced.
Maybe then, as I face these ghosts, the past will recede into the shadows and not return.
As I pack up my things, I wonder if a ghost will follow me again, to my new beginning.
Or if I’ll be free at least.
I don’t know.
But I’m doing my best.
Love: 